During today’s meeting with farmers from Cërrik, Rama stated, “Farmers and municipalities need to unite, as there’s no need to remind you that unity is strength. The outdated mindset of communist cooperatives must be left behind, as those cooperatives were about everyone working together in production, only to receive a handout at the end of the month. Today’s cooperatives are about individual production but collective sales, which means municipalities must be involved in collection and processing. I sincerely hope that Cërrik will be one of the first models, as you now have the government’s guarantee and a 250 million euro financing line for soft loans to support agriculture.”

Rama stated that Cërrik is ahead of the curve in processing agricultural waste and has the potential to lead in the cultivation, processing, and export of olive oil as well.

“As to olive oil, farmers, in collaboration with the municipality and the government, can implement sector-specific initiatives. We need to develop entrepreneurial ideas even at the municipal level, so the ball is in your court. The issue isn’t the fragmentation of land, it’s the fragmentation of thinking. When we work together in production, negotiating the price becomes much more advantageous,” Rama explained.

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