Albanian livestock and the strategy of rural development

The agriculture sector continues to play an important role in the Albanian contributing about 21 percent of the GDP and employing more than half of the active labor force in the country. Actually, agriculture sector is the most important income source for the majority of rural households. Agriculture sector has, generally, experienced high growth rates during these last years. The rapid growth and recovery during these years resulted mostly from the ability of farmers to quickly adapt to the changes brought about through the privatization by modifying their production structures. However, producers still continue to face many obstacles that are beyond their control: small and fragmented land holding, limited access to markets and poorly developed business relations with agribusinesses at the commercial end of the agricultural supply chains, limited access to rural finance, poor rural infrastructure, etc. Beginning in 1998, the economy initially grew at annual rates of 7-8%, but the rate has slowed to 4.5% by 2002 due to the energy crisis. Real GDP growth in 2003 returned to an annual rate of about 6% and is expected to be sustained at the level over the short term. If this rate of growth can be maintained, Albania is considered to be on track to achieve, by 2015, its target of halving the share of the population living under the absolute poverty line. Albania is a very mountainous country. Only 16% of the land lies below 100m, 55% falls between 100 and 1000 m and 29% is above 1000m. Thus the land used for agriculture is often quite sloping, with only about 44% of the agricultural land having a slope of less than 5%. The Albanian agriculture is dominated from small size farms. The total number of farms is approximately 370,000 farms. The average size of household farms is 1.14 ha, according to official statistics. This is distributed across an average of 4.1 parcels, with average parcel size 0.27 ha. This is compared with an average of 5 ha for Central and Eastern European countries and 27 ha for Western Europe. This is an important handicap to the improvement of agricultural productivity and to a sustainable development of the agriculture sector. The land used for agriculture is often quite sloping, with only about 44% of the agricultural land having a slope of less than 5%. Agriculture provides the income basis for most of the population and serves as an employment safety net. The rural population is estimated to comprise about 54 percent of the total population while about 60 percent of the labor force works in agriculture and related fields.