November 2, 2018 - The disastrously bad condition of rural infrastructure is one of the key barriers to market development in agriculture and the rural economy in Montenegro, which for seven decades has no consistent and fruitful agrarian policy, adequate to the natural, market and socio-economic needs of the country.
This is stated in the book "Agriculture and Villages of Montenegro in the Transition Period 1990 - 2016", by Cedomir Marovic, former Director of the Agroeconomic Institute, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and Director of Agrobank in Podgorica.
The book came out in an issue of "Vijesti" and represents the image of agriculture and rural space in Montenegro from 1918 to 1941, then the period of self-management and socialist development of the economic branch from 1945 to 1990, and finally, times of major system changes or popularly called transition times.
"In spite of the fact that the legacy of Montenegro, when it comes to the rural economy, was not the brightest one before the nineties, there were realistic expectations that some of the previous negative processes would be halted (rural exodus and devastation of the rural economy) and to embark on a process through which economically developed countries have turned this industry into one of the pillars of their economy. On the other hand, we should finally accept the expected changes that the rural environment is the natural habitat of man. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and villages continued to perish, currently existing with 75 to 80 percent of life and the economy, which is one of the most difficult contemporary and developmental problems," Marovic said.
In support of this allegation, he states that the percentage of agricultural land usage in 1989 was 36 percent, and in 2016 it fell to five percent, according to Monstat. The number of farms in 1991 amounted to 60,043, while in 2016 this number was 43,791 farms or 27 percent less.
Marovic states that the lack of concept for functioning the market for agri-food products as a multi-decennial problem in this sector has led to the fact that farmers are left to regulate the market according to the laws of competitiveness and their economic interests, which is the most straightforward to undermine the concept of every successful agricultural production and producer standards.
"The low level of productivity in livestock production, as a result of a high technological decline, is shown by the most striking fact that the average milk production per cow in Montenegro in 2016 was 2,803 liters per year, while the same product in Western European countries ranged 6,500 liters. In Canada, the annual milk production per cow is 9,000 liters of milk, while the same production per cow in Israel is 11,140 liters. Finally, farm production in cattle breeding as the most important agricultural branch is not competitive on the local market, let alone on the international market, which is why the effort and the funds invested do not bring farms and state the results that would be realistic to expect."
Čedomir Marović PHOTO:
He points out that the Strategy for the Development of Agriculture and Rural Areas for 2015-2020 is abundant with the wrong and incomplete view of ways to address major problems in the current production and development sector, whose solutions should be positioned as a firm policy and operational principle on quite different grounds and for a longer period of time.
"The disadvantages have come to the fore in the current monocentric concept of rural economic development as the only choice, where the direction of significant investment funds has lost the power of economic progress, which confirms the extremely weak position of agricultural households in the reproduction system, and on the other side this unfavorable condition is most directly reflected in the weak increase in food production and export. Particularly worth mentioning is the lack of projects of integral development of food production and rural tourism and other activities, on for such predicted attractive locations.
On the other hand, as Marovic puts it, for almost three decades they have been left out of the reach of the current development policy, science and profession, the largest and most widespread natural resources such as: Bjelopavlići plain, Lješkopolje, Crmnica field, Ulcinj and Vladimirsko field, coastal zone of Skadar Lake with Zeta, Mrčevo field, Tivat field, Sutorina, Grahovo field, Lim valley, Vraneška valley, Gusinje field, Nikšic parish, Krnovo, Lukavica, Kosanica, Durmitor area, Bjelasica, Komovi. Investments in the farm production of milk and meat are in 90% of cases (estimates because there are no official data) directed towards persons who do not have any professional education for successful employment. Because of this situation, it is logical that existing production does not have the expected economic results and because of which such farms are most often decaying. The fact that the number of flocks of cattle in 1989 compared to 2016 is more than halved.
Marovic states that the meat processing industry is living on imported raw materials, although there are some extraordinary conditions here to compensate for the import with our own production. "The number of vineyards in 1989 was 17,190,720, while in 2016 this number was 10,552,905 grapevines. As a result of prominent and other problems, total production balances compared to 1989 in relation to 2016 are more than halved. It is an assessment because there is no official data and, finally, it should be kept in mind that Montenegro is in the second last or last place of the list of rurally developed countries in Europe."
Text by Dejan Perunicic, on November 1st 2018, read more at Vijesti
