Author: Gëzim Hilaj
Musa Hila, 58 years old, a resident of the "Malzi" Administrative Unit of Kukës, in 1992 planted 2 hectares of land with corn and beans and 1 and a half dynym of watermelon. However, this year he managed to plant only 5 dynym, mainly with wheat due to financial difficulties and the lack of information about the applications that are carried out online at the Agency for Agricultural and Rural Development (AZHBR), which has also prevented the benefit of subsidies by the Ministry of Agriculture. Trau in Kalimash is an added financial burden even when agricultural tools are transported as cargo.
"I bought the 8 million Lek old house only thanks to the children from the emigration. We don't talk about having support from the government", says Hila, as he adds that he paid the tax for his agricultural vehicle on the beam of Rruga e Kombit.
"On the Albanian train, in addition to the car that I was transporting the zetori, I was charged an additional tax of 690 lek for the zetori that I was carrying. This is absurd." he said.
Agriculture provides work for the vast majority of the population in the "Malzi" Administrative Unit of Kukës, while the non-agricultural private sector has a low impact on overall employment.
This unit has 180 hectares of agricultural land and land, 494 hectares of non-productive land and 1323 hectares of barren land. The "Farmer's Window" under AZHBR offers Services to farmers, information on applications, access to financing, but the farmers of these villages of Kukës do not benefit from the support schemes. The farmers of Malziu in Kukës buy the agricultural tools, the seed for sowing the land and the nutrients for the plants with their own money.
According to the administration officer at the Administrative Unit, Kujtim Beqiri, many residents do not benefit from the support schemes of the AZHBR as a result of the non-registration of the lands in the Real Estate Registration Office based on of law no. 20/2020, and the lack of a farmer's card. The two villages, Gdheshte and Pistë, do not have a single meter of registered land. "In the Malzi Administrative Unit, the application for oil has encountered difficulties because they do not own the land and the plots are small, 1 dynym, 500 meters. The number of farmers who own land is small. But the farmers have not registered all their hectares, for the reason that they did not want this to hinder the benefit of economic assistance", explains Beqiri. "There is land that has remained registered in the names of fathers who have died", he concludes.
After a request for information addressed to the Agency for Agricultural and Rural Development on the number of farmers who benefit from national support schemes in the Municipality of Kukës, the latter responded that there are a total of 149 potential applications that can benefit from funds from the state budget.
"Based on the lists of applications announced on the official website of AZHBR, in which the financing line for each of the measures is also set, we inform you that potential applications that can benefit from funds from the state budget are as follows :
- There are 98 applications for the support measure for basic livestock herds;
- There are 50 applications for the support measure of parks with beehives;
- For the amount of organic farms, there is 1 application".
In the bill "For the 2021 state budget", The Minister of Finance and Economy, Anila Denaj, also presented the scheme for economic development of agriculture, where he stated: "Agriculture will continue to benefit in real terms of 0.8% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for the period 2021-2023. The number of beneficiaries from the scheme of support measures in agriculture is increasing".
For the economy expert in Kukës, Sabah Gaxha, farmers do not meet the criteria of AZHBR, but even the subsidies for those farmers are not economically sufficient. "The main reason why there are few applications is because one of the criteria set by AZHBR is land ownership. In Kukës, farmers have land, but they don't have papers. They cannot meet the conditions set by AZHBR. In the last meetings where I have been a part of the AZHBR, livestock farmers who have more than 100 head of small cattle are worried because the Ministry of Agriculture subsidizes them very little with about 500 thousand old lek per subject. Keeping 100 head of cattle has economic costs, even the AZHBR subsidies are not enough. The fact that there are very few livestock farmers in Kukës is also the fee they pay to the state. The fee for registration and vaccination is approximately 5200 old lek per head", articulates Gaxha, while adding that the funds provided by the state budget for Agriculture are small compared to the other two countries of the Region.
"Other countries in the Region have more financial support for agriculture than we do, for example: Macedonia and Kosovo have more than Albania". explains Gaxha.
Young people leaving the land
The director of AZHBR, Frida Krifca, in 2020, emphasized that a new mentality is needed for agriculture. According to her, the new generation should be educated with love for agriculture. But her appeal seems to have fallen on "deaf ears" in the villages of Kukës. According to the data provided by the Kukës Civil Registry in the Administrative Unit "Malzi" from 1989 to 2021, the number of residents has decreased by 50%. According to residents, this decrease in population has come as a result of the emigration of young people to the countries of the European Union, Great Britain or urban areas.
With a mass emigration of young people, the only way to keep alive the passion of Malian farmers for tilling the land has been income from remittances.
"A big problem is the departure of young people. Agriculture needs labor. In our area, there are only old men in spia. If we don't have the money that our children bring us from abroad, I don't know how we would continue to cover the costs of planting the land". concludes Musa Hila.
Even the Employment Offices in Kukës show the growing trend of job requests of young people aged 15-29 towards professions as far away from Agriculture as possible. To the request for information to the National Agency for Employment and Disabilities, the institution responded that "The professions most sought after by young people registered at the Kukas Employment Office are as follows: nursing; the teacher; worker of other Services; Social Work and Security".
The phenomenon of the departure of young people from these villages of Kukës can also be observed from the data provided by the Kukës Local Education Office, where the number of students of the 9-year cycle in 2020 has decreased by 73 percent compared to 2005.
The student with the initials SB, 14 years old, is in the 9th grade at the United High School "Shemri". He worries about the departure of his peers to these villages. "Students have always left our area, continuing their schooling in other countries. Many friends have left, not only from my class, but also from other classes".
Even the number of students in the secondary cycle continues to decrease for these villages that provide income for living from agriculture and remittances. The year 2019 had only 49 students in secondary education, the year with the fewest students since 2006.
In the tenth grade in the school of this Administrative Unit, the student with the initials JM focuses on demographic problems: "Many students that I had friends with have fled my country and many continue to flee abroad. We all have a mind to run away from the village. Very soon this entire Administrative Unit will be abandoned, all the people will leave". JM himself sees the same solution, following the trend of other young people leaving in his country. "I wanted to go to Germany to earn money. I see many people who have graduated from high school from my country, even they have not managed to find a job."
The ministry subsidizes oil, but it is bought by the barrel
On the one hand, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development has stated that the process of distributing free oil to all farmers starts on January 15 of this year (2021) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is standing by to make possible the successful implementation of this the promise that the government took for the farmer. MBZHR, to the question whether oil for these small farmers of this municipality has suffered a price reduction and how much this reduction was, answered: "According to point 6, Chapter II, of the Instruction of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development No. 1, dated 8.1.2021 "On the criteria, procedures and way of administration of the oil support scheme for agriculture", amended, the benefit of the amount of free oil for the cultivated area, is as follows:
- a) Applicants with an area of up to 10 ha, benefit from 100% of the amount of oil according to the norms defined in Annex 3, attached to this instruction; b) Applicants with an area over 10 ha, for an area over 10 ha, receive the amount of oil with corrected/reduced norms when the amount of available oil does not meet all the demand for these areas."
On the other hand, the farmers of Mgullë village in Kukës not only do not get oil for free, but buy it on the black market. Arjan Çiku, the son of a small farmer, says that they don't get oil with the oil card because there is also a lack of fuel for agricultural tools in the center of the village. "They get diesel in a store with 5-liter cans because we don't have a gas station. We have had no help from the government for this problem. We buy a 750-liter canister of diesel for 5 new lek. says Arjani.
Qemal Memishaj, responsible in the Kukës Directorate of Agriculture, in an interview for RTSH Kukësi, emphasized that the limited number of oil cards is a consequence of the lack of land ownership. "Currently, until the day we speak, about 40 farmers have received the Nafta card. We have 20 cards that will be distributed in two or three days and the rest that remain are about 25 farmers who will receive the oil cards. The limited number of farmers is a consequence of the lack of land ownership documents", explains Memishaj.
The land is still plowed and planted by horse
Demolition of a bridge since the winter of last year, it has been holding hostage 10 families of farmers from the village of Mgullë, who were transporting tools, agricultural products and livestock on this bridge. According to them, the local institutions are not interested in their life in the village. "Now that the level of the river drops in the summer, we managed to pass the agricultural tools over the river, but this is a dangerous thing, because the river can take down the agricultural tools, causing economic damage to our families who have invested in them" , says Chiku.
The same problem is observed with the bridge which connects the village of Petkaj with the houses and lands on the other side of the village. Ram Skaci, for 15 years, works and sows his land and that of several other villages on horseback. The only passage to his house is a dilapidated cable-stayed bridge that wobbles when you walk over it. The lack of this bridge has made him continue to work the land with animals. "I work the land with a plow, I have nothing to do. An engineer from the Municipality came, but they did not build the bridge because there is only one bridge beyond this bridge. I can't do it myself", emphasizes Skaci.
The lack of investments in infrastructure, the residents' ignorance of the existing subsidies for agriculture and the impossibility of benefiting from them, as well as the lack of perspective and the abandonment of the area by the younger generation, has caused the residents of an entire area in Kukës to abandon the main means of living and see the future away from their homes, in the main cities of Albania, or even in emigration.
