TIRANA, Nov. 8 – Apple growers in the northern Albanian region of Dibra say thousands of metric tons of apples are destined to be sold below cost or go rotten because of overproduction and lack of refrigerated warehousing that could allow them to sell their top fruit at higher prices later in winter.
Apple growing has turned into the main business for farmers in Dibra, one of the country’s poorest regions where agriculture and mining are the main employers and migrant remittances play a key role for thousands of households to make ends meet.
More than 8,000 metric tons of apples are pending sale in Dibra with most of production destined to go rotten as farmers have no refrigeration infrastructure and have turned to archaic methods such as laying them on the ground and putting straw to preserve them, says the ‘Rruga e Arbrit’, a local monthly newspaper focused on developments in Dibra which is named after the under construction Arbri Highway linking Albania and the Dibra region to neighboring Macedonia.
A region of some 140,000 residents, Dibra has more than 500,000 apple trees planted in more than 460 hectares that include Golden, Starking and Granny Smith varieties, being one of the top two producers along with Korà§a, southeastern Albania, where overproduction has also led to prices that often don’t justify huge costs this season.
Local farmers in Dibra say they are being offered a mere 30 lek (€0.4) per kg by local warehouse collectors, in prices which they claim don’t even justify pesticide and irrigation costs not to mention their efforts.
Poor infrastructure in some isolated Dibra villages and high transportation costs to Tirana are also a key barrier, in addition to failure to get subsidies because of land fragmentation and the need of farmers to come together in agricultural cooperatives and enterprises in order to gain access to local and now EU funds under the newly launched IPARD II, the Instrument for Pre-accession for Rural Development programme.
“I have 4 to 5 metric tons of apples of various varieties at a good quality which are destined to go rotten because the prices we are being offered are not even enough to cover pesticide and irrigation costs. If we had better road access, we would go and sell them on our own to Tirana,” says a local Dibra farmer.
Another farmer says local farmers should be more cooperative to join and benefit from subsidies and examine export opportunities.
“We farmers must necessarily cooperate and look at export opportunities. Support schemes give a priority to cooperatives rather than individual farmers and if farmers come together they can succeed,” says Veip Sallaku, a Dibra farmer as quoted by the local newspaper.
Farmers in the southeastern region of Korà§a, the traditional largest apple producers, have also been facing problems with sales this year due to overproduction, but have better access to markets due to more established links and some of their apples already destined for exports.
Albania has more than 30 million apple trees, with an annual production of about 73,000 metric tons.
Agriculture is a key sector of the Albanian economy that employs about half of the country’s population but which due to its poor productivity provides only about a fifth of the national output.
Experts say unclear property titles for around half of the country’s agricultural land is a key barrier for the development of larger farms and access to local and EU subsidies that could make Albania’s products much more competitive.
In addition to land fragmentation, poor financing, lack of subsidies and key infrastructure such as irrigation as well as a high tax burden are a serious problem for Albania’s agriculture sector, with high costs often making local products uncompetitive.
