Medicinal plants, Albania’s key agricultural exports

TIRANA, August 10 – Exports of medicinal plants registered another increase in 2010 accounting for 57 percent of agricultural exports and 20 percent of total agricultural and food exports. Data published by the Agriculture Ministry show exports of medicinal plants increased to 7,173 tonnes in 2010, worth 1.85 billion lek (USD 18.5 million, Euro 13.2 million) compared to 6,007 tonnes worth 1.5 billion lek (USD 15 million, Euro 1.07 million in 2009), registering an increase of 20 percent year-on-year.
Medicinal plants were Albania’s second most important export in the agricultural and food exports last year. The export list was topped by canned fish worth 2.7 billion lek. Its exports slightly rose to 2,502 tonnes, up from 2,497 tonnes in 2009.
Most medicinal plants are exported to Germany, which ranks first with 2,031 tonnes worth 590 million lek, followed by the United States of America with 231 million lek and Turkey with around 160 million lek.
Be it sage, yellow gentian or rosemary – Albania is an important player on the European medicinal herb and spice market. But as an Albanian-German research study shows, Albania could make much more of its green treasure.
Mostly it is women and children in remote and inaccessible regions who collect one of Albania’s most important exports. The work is painstaking and poorly-paid, bending to pick individual leaves, flowers and roots.
Albania is the world’s largest exporter of sage and one of the leading exporters of medicinal herbs in Europe. Still, one should add, because in the wake of the 1990 turnaround and increasing privatisation, competition and migration, the medicinal herbs industry is shrinking. In communist times, Albania earned about 50 million US dollars a year exporting medicinal herbs, and the sector employed roughly 100,000 people. Today, Albania only exports about 8,000 tons of medicinal herbs per year, valued at around 15 million EUR.
Professor Dhimit철Doka of the University of Tirana suggests that if the plants were cultivated instead of being picked wild as they have been so far, the harvest could be increased as much as sixfold. If this were the case, the trade in medicinal herbs could be turned into an engine for development in many regions of the country. This would require a change in attitude, too. So far, picking the local wild medicinal herbs has been seen as a means of overcoming a short-term emergency rather than as a stable economic sector. Other problems include environmental damage, diminishing quality due to over-picking and the decline of certain species of medicinal herb.
Albanian plant life and its roughly 3,200 various medicinal herbs, of which 350 species are exported so far, and ensuring that Albania develops its position as an important exporting country.
Although Albania is small, only covering an area of 29,000 square kilometres, its plant life is very diverse. The picking areas can usually be found at a height of up to 1,700 metres in mountainous regions controlled by the forestry authorities. The relief, the climate, the types of soil and the absence of chemicals are the reasons for the quality of the plants. The export successes include sage, rosemary and yellow gentian.