Quality of wheat in Kosovo, below normal

Bashkim Zejnullahu, chairman of the Kosovo Mills Association, says the current quality of wheat does not provide guarantees for processing all products out of flour.

When we say what's missing from wheat, maybe it's too early to talk over the harvest-forest campaign... He doesn't miss much but will not give enough quality to process. For bread processing, maybe it won't be a problem, because for bread we constantly import wheat, as boosters of quality... But for some other food industries it will be a problem”, Zejnullah says of Radio Free Europe.

He mentions cookies, pastry, pie pies as products that can be affected by the inferior quality of wheat.

Disgruntled with quality are the producers themselves.

“Guri, this year, has no heart, does not have that feeding part”, says Pal Djurovic, of the Association of Producing Farmers of Kosovo Gruri.

“Buka requires high quality wheat”, he adds.

The wheat - quality barometer is the hectoliter weight. The higher the weight of the hectolite in the wheat, the greater the amount of dry matter and the yield of flour.

Under normal conditions, this value should be over 75 pounds [75 kg] of wheat. This value is determined by specific scales that each flour factory possesses.

This year's “Hectoliter's work is up to 75, and last year it was up to 82”, says Radio Free Europe Musa Gashi, owner of the flour factory “Grunor”, in the town of Scikyright.

According to him, the quality of wheat “is not disturbing”.

Imer Rusinovac, professor at the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Pristina, confirms that this year's wheat culture does not have standard parameters, but says it can be used for flour production, respectively.

“Normically that under 65 [hetoliter weight] is not dedicated to the Soot industry, but that surveys conducted for grain this year are all over 70”, Russia says of Radio Free Europe.

According to the representatives of farmers and millers, factors that have contributed to the weaker quality of wheat are adverse climate conditions and inadequate fertilizer, as they say, rising prices of artificial fertilizer.

The price of this product has increased dramatically, in the continuation of expensive products as well.

When “breadport” is at war
The wheat must be fertilized twice. This year, 100kg of artificial fertilizer have reached 100 euros, compared to last year when they cost 32 euros. Up to 300 pounds [300 kg] of fertilizer is needed for a hectare.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture in Kosovo, Kosovo's direct payment programme 2021, respectively, for a wheat-growing hectare, Kosovo farmers have been subsidised by 75 euros.

Within the framework of the 2022 direct payment programme, Kosovo Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development Faton Peci has pledged to subsidise farmers even for autumn planting wheat culture.

Subventions this year amount to 474 euros per hectare, including fertilizer and oil expenses.

But, in addition to the questionable quality, farmers in Kosovo have warned that even the amount of wheat, which will be secured this year by harvesting and harvesting, will not be enough for population needs.

According to them, the needs will be met up to 50 percent.

From the Ministry of Agriculture, they have said they expect citizens' demands to be met up to 70 percent, while on the quality of grain, so far, they have not spoken.

The needs of Kosovo's population are for about 400,000 tonnes of wheat annually.

Kosovo has, for years, not met them and largely depends on import.

Serbia is the country from which it imports the largest amount of wheat and flour.

During the year 2021, Kosovo has imported 84 thousand tonnes of various wheat and flour from Serbia to 115 thousand tons in total from various states.

But this year, the prices of these imported products have also been markedly expensive, mainly because of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine are among the world's largest cereal exporters, and the struggle between them has caused market disorders.