Sector Strategy of Agriculture and Food.

The Sector Strategy of Agriculture and Food is a national strategy with a cross-sectoral approach. The timeframe of the Strategy is 7 years between 2007-2013. It adopts a twin- track approach by identifying thefollowing strategic priorities a) to increase the financial support for farms, agricultural and agro-processing businesses, b) to improve the management, irrigation, and drainage of agricultural land, c) to improve the marketing of agricultural and agro-processing products, d) to increase the level and quality of technologies, information, and knowledge of farmers and agro-processors, e) to increase the quality and food safety of agricultural and agro-processing products. The Strategy sees the agricultural and agro-The long-term Strategic goals are: a) Sustained management of land, as a basic component for the sound agricultural development and completely in compliance with that; b) Increase of employment, incomes, and farmers’ and their families’ life level ;c) Increase of agricultural and agro-processing sector’s economic efficiency that is expressed through productivity enhancement and a higher quality of their products; d). Guaranteeing a higher food safety standard for all the population; e) Improvement of the agricultural marketing processing development in the perspective of European integration. The strategic sectors will be developed based on the studies identifying the most favorable areas and adequate support policies from the economic, social, and environment points of view; so that, the economic efficiency and productivity get higher, employment increases, environment be protected and production resources be well-used.
The food enterprises are improving their hygienic and sanitary conditions. The food insecurity is the main reason of high diversification of farm production. In order to guarantee the food security, the Strategy underlines that development of a harmonized and diversified agriculture is needed; so that, in any time the country would be able to face emergent needs for basic commodities.
Agricultural land should be managed in a rational way, agriculture production and farmers’ welfare should constantly go up. This also means that production resources, water, genetic resources, production livestock, fruit trees, agrarian environment, etc. will be better managed, will be used more effectively and would not see any mismanagement. The economic efficiency is related with productivity of using productive factors and with the quality of produced goods, i.e. also with the cost level and sale prices. These are the basic factors of trade competitiveness and in selling the farmer’s products. In order to increase efficiency, not only the availability of productive factors should be increased, but also a good compatibility should be realized. Therefore, one of goals of the SSAF is to use more production factors in agriculture (fertilizers, mechanics, breeds, high potential seeds and seedlings) that all guarantee enhancement of productivity and quality as bases for production, incomes, and welfare increase.
The importance of increasing export is essential to increase employment and to improve the prosperity. To fulfil the needs and requests of all farmers and other persons interested in agricultural activities, technical assistance service develops a training program, which contains issues on plant cultivation and animal breeding technologies, elements of the farm budget, financial management, marketing and farmers organization as well. In collaboration with research staff and farmers it leads applied research at farm level and establish relationships between researchers, extension staff and farmers. The contacts with farmers are attained through Agricultural Information Centers, which are already placed in all most important agricultural zones of the country.
The drafting of a new law on Food is a basic requirement for the development of the food industry in the country and for the introduction of HACCP system which can ensure a safer product. The introduction of the international standards on food safety and quality, as the HACCP, ISO etc. is needed to ensure a safety product to the consumer. The food safety inspectorate controls about 90 percent of all food consumers. The aim of the control is to ensure the application of the legislation and the consumer protection. In order to increase the competitive capacity of the agro-processing sector, investments and support by rural development policies are needed. The Strategy underlines the need to use modern technologies in the irrigation system to increase the efficiency. Furthermore the quality improvement of the products will increase the Albanian export and will reduce the import of many products that can be supplied in the market by the domestic producers. The control of the production in the farms that want to export their production is supported by the state for the phyto-sanitary certificate which is compliant with EU standards.
A total cost of 2.5 billion lek is estimated the emergency intervention fund for the rehabilitation of the dikes for the protection of the agriculture land from rivers erosion and inundation. The irrigation systems are transferred to water users associations and federations. The utilization and the maintenance of the irrigation systems are under the responsibility of the water users associations and farmers associations
The strategic priorities and policies are supported by the central government and its institutions. An important support was given by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy. Payment Agency will be the EU support implementation structure of Albania for rural development in general, including agriculture activities.