Less wheat this year

At a media conference held in Teresa's “Square “, the chairman of the Kosovo Agricultural Union Federation, Tahir Tahiri, on the occasion of completing harvests in Kosovo, said wheat productivity behaves 2,700kg per hectares, and that about 30,000 hectares of wheat have been less planted this year.

This is very distressing for us, so it should be for all of us even Government and the people because this year according to our parameters we can't afford more than 20 percent”, he said. Such low efficiency, says Tahiri, also results from seeds, garbage, and noncial pesticides. In addition, there is the design of farmers because of low subsidies and non-combat competition from import.

He said that the other problem that he poses for farmers is the misuse of the Ministry of Agriculture in the event of subsidies.

The next “Problem that has impacted lowering surfaces and productivity is non-viral competition coming from import, especially Serbia, with very poor quality”, he added.

And on the other hand, Isuf Cikaqi, director of the Department of Agricultural Policy in the Ministry of Agriculture, prior to the union conference, said that although there is still no final report on harvest data, Kosovo this year has had wheat surfaces of about 7,000 hectares, or 14,000 hectares less than last year.

Also, Cikaqi said this year's productivity was made of 3,500,4,000kg per hectares of a good quality.

” As a need for our country, some 410 thousand tons of wheat is needed in Kosovo. Of the 410 thousand tonnes needed, this year at this 70 thousand hectares of land and with an productivity of about 4 tons per hectares, it is estimated that in Kosovo some 280 thousand tons are produced, while the rest should be provided through import”, he said.

And the professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, Imer Rusinovac, suggested that the methodology of stimulating measures for farmers should change and have criteria for productivity. Therefore, according to him, farmers should not be demotivated and discouraged, rather, they should be driven among the stimulating measures for Kosovo to secure a sufficient local producer, RTK reports.

Imer Rusinovac, professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, Different, the Federation of Farmers of Kosovo, has indicated that about 1,000 autocontains operate in Kosovo this year, and none of them have harvested more than 40 hectares this year. This, according to this federation, would mean there was no more than 400,000 hectares of wheat surfaces in Kosovo.