2025, funds for farmers, 69% are expenses for staff and advice

2024-11-20 07:29:00, Ekonomi CNA

In addition to the Government of Albania providing the lowest funding as direct support to farmers, most of the funding ends up as recurring expenses and very little is invested in farms to increase production.

According to official tables from the draft budget of 2025, of the total budget expenditures for rural development of 7.2 billion, more than 5 billion ALL or 69 percent of the funds go to current expenditures and only 21 percent as capital expenditures in the service of growth of production.

Of the approximately 72 million euros that have been allocated for "Rural development and production promotion", only 22 million euros are invested, the rest are expenses that go to the payments of the staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and for consulting.

The 2024 budget is also in similar reports, while Albanian farmers were involved earlier this year in protests for the lack of financial support.

Imports of agricultural products have increased by over 20 percent this year because they easily compete with our products. Europe and the Region have higher subsidies than Albania and their products come out at a lower cost and therefore have cheaper prices than those produced in our country.

Albania financed an average of 0.19% of GDP in the agricultural sector during the years 2020-2023, while in 2025 it finances only 0.56% of GDP in agriculture, while European countries have financing rates three times higher in relation to GDP.

Only Albania stands out as a country in the Region with a low level of agricultural support for agriculture, which at the same time is the sector with the largest weight in GDP with about 19% of it.

In addition to internal funding from national budgets, agriculture was benefiting from significant funding from the European Union's IPARD program, an instrument for countries in the EU accession process. Across the region, IPARD funds saw increased disbursements following the pandemic. Albania and Serbia were the biggest beneficiaries of the IPARD program, but an investigation by the Office of the Investigation for the Regularity of the Process (OLAF) has blocked the funds for Albania indefinitely.

The scarce funds available are not enabling investment in the protection of agriculture from climate change, nor can it stimulate innovation in this field to increase the yield which in many crops is much lower than in the EU.

The lack of investment in agricultural innovation is being considered as an obstacle to the use of private financing and is a missed opportunity to address environmental concerns and climate change in agriculture.

A recent estimate by the World Bank shows that closing the gap by 25% for research and development investments in the Region could increase agricultural productivity by 15% in Albania, 25% in BiH, 16% in North Macedonia and 6% in Serbia ./ Monitor magazine