Ruli: National olive oil, nut programme to boost agricultural growth

TIRANA, Nov. 28 – The national olive programme and the newly launched nut tree programme will be factors generating long term growth for the Albanian agriculture, minister Genc Ruli said during a conference on boosting investment opportunities in these fields.
Presenting the findings of a study on these two national programmes, Ruli announced that some 43,000 Albanian farm households will benefit from investments in olive and nut tree planting creating an additional 900 workplaces in the processing sector.
While the annual production of olive and nut tree is estimated at 290 mln dollars for an area of 30,000 hectares, the ministry expects exports of these products to grow to 160 mln USD.
Agriculture Ministry data show Albania had 6.2 million olive trees in 2010, up from 5.6 million in 2009, of which only 4.3 million are in the production stage. Olive production in 2010 rose by 46 percent to 70,000 tons in 2010 while yield climbed to 16.3 kg/tree.
Despite rising production, Albanian olive oil imports rose to 1,213 tons in 2010, worth 581 million lek. Meanwhile, olive oil exports in 2010 dropped to 16 tons, worth 8.2 million lek, down from 20 tons worth 12.5 million lek in 2009, says an annual report by the Agriculture Ministry.
Earlier this year, government approved a decision facilitating the transfer of wood and pasture areas into agricultural land. The decision was made in the frame of the national program to increase olive and nut tree areas all over Albania.
More than 8,000 farmers nationwide have applied to benefit agricultural subsidies during this year, according to Agriculture Ministry sources. The subsidies which are being granted on cattle, greenhouse crops, bio-farms and the agro-processing industry assisting farmers with interest-free loans.
Sources say the 2010 fund was 15 million dollars, 40 percent of which was used to support the national olive tree programme.
The ministry says some 2,000 new hectares of olive groves, 275 hectares of grapes and 550 hectares of fruit trees were planted in 2010 under state support schemes.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha said government would do its utmost to support the planting of at least 30 million nut trees, including hazelnut, almond, chestnut, pomegranates in the next four years.
Although employing 44 percent of the country’s population, almost double compared to other EU potential and candidate countries and eight times more compared to the EU 27 average, Albania’s agriculture sector manages to produce only 19 percent of the gross value added by main sector. The latest data published in a report by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, show agriculture is the second most important sector for the Albanian economy after services which account for 57 percent of the gross value added and employs 36 percent of the population. This is explained by the fact that all people living in rural areas and possessing land in Albania are automatically calculated as self-employed in the agricultural sector.
Albania’s agriculture is the least financed by the government and the banking sector. The Albanian government spends only 0.5 percent of the GDP on agriculture while credit to the agricultural sector at the end of July 2011 was at 4.6 billion lek, representing only 1.3 percent of total credit to businesses, according to central bank data.