By Andi Balla
It is an unfortunate annual occurrence: News stories about Albanian farmers in very rural areas dumping perfect fruits and vegetables simply because there is no available intermediary to take these products to market and sell them.
The problem is systemic — the needed road and transport infrastructure as well as proper business relations are not in place to make the venture worth it for food distribution companies to buy and distribute these products to both local and international markets. These problems need long-term strategies on the part of the government, but can be remedied with the proper investment and business acumen.
However, there need to be the proper incentives for private companies and farmers to come together and market a competitive product. Let’s leave potential exports aside for the moment, and focus solely on the natural market — the domestic one. Albanian markets are well-stocked with great looking, if not great tasting, fruits and vegetables year-round. More often than not, they are imports from neighboring Greece and Macedonia.
Studies show that people in Albania prefer food that is grown locally to the one that is imported. So how does imported fresh fruits and vegetables beat their local counterparts, which, at least in theory, should be cheaper and easier to sell? The cost effectiveness of mass production and borderless free trade give a leg up to producers from neighboring countries. They are simply more competitive both on price and business smarts, year after year, placing the disorganized, higher cost Albanian producers in a chokehold.
Part of the story here relates to the current free trade arrangements Albania has with the European Union and the neighboring Western Balkan countries. In theory, it should be a two-way street: Both Albania and its partners should benefit. In practice, Albania loses, for the all the reasons mentioned above and more.
Albania’s trade deficit has improved in recent years, but it remains large. But while a country can deal with trade deficit on many products, when it comes to food security, it is another issue altogether, and it should be treated as such, particularly as the country prepares to open negotiations with the European Union. It should make sure that Albanian farmers and other food producers can keep going strong locally and are able to truly compete in the far larger EU market.
The farmers who have lost their annual crop in places like Devoll or Dibra already have a new culprit — the foreign imports, which they blame as much as the government in Tirana. They have told as much to journalists interviewing them as they dumped their products into pits and riverbeds.
This, of course, is not only an Albanian problem. Free trade is increasingly coming under attack worldwide. On Oct. 30, Canada and the European Union signed CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, a free trade deal that for a long time was held hostage by the French-speaking half of Belgium, where there are more cows than people and where small milk producers were worried they would have to compete with Canada’s industrial-scale milk and meat production.
The agreement ultimately went through with some small changes, but it was only the preamble to of the next big fight, that over TTIP, the big free trade deal in the works between the European Union and the United States.
While hardly anyone is speaking about these in Albania, they will affect this country too when it joins the European Union.
Free trade is largely seen as a positive for the economy. But it is important to note that there are both winners and losers in this process.
Perhaps full membership in the European Union will give a boost to Albanian farmers through agricultural programs aimed at helping farmers keep afloat, but for now, Albanian farmers are often caught in no-man’s land and they are clear losers to their neighbors to the south and east.
Yes, Albania’s problems are structural, but the country needs to think beyond free trade if it wants to provide enough of an incentive for the farmers and suppliers to change current structures to benefit locals first and make sure the country has food security for its residents.
