TIRANA, Aug. 12 – Domestic wheat production declined for the sixth year in a row in 2014 when it dropped to around 280,000 tonnes, meeting only about 30 percent of the country’s needs and increasing reliance on imports.
Wheat production has been constantly declining since the peak level of 395,100 tonnes in 1998 and a recovery of 335,000 tonnes in 2008, shows a report by Open Data research centre quoting INSTAT data.
The southeastern region of Fier led wheat production with 27 percent of the total in 2014 followed by Korà§a with 22 percent, Elbasan with 15 percent and Tirana and Berat with 7 percent each.
Farmers say this year’s wheat production has been better but the country continues remaining largely dependent on imports from Russia and Serbia.
Albania’s field crops in 2014 were led by forage with around 6.1 million tonnes, followed by vegetables with 950,000 tonnes, grains with 700,000 tonnes and potatoes with 240,000 tonnes, all of which registered modest growth rates of 1 to 3 percent, according to INSTAT.
