Evaluation of the USAID-Kosovo SME and Agriculture - Economic ...

Development Associates, Inc.New oil seed and feed grain production should be promoted only after establishing orarranging processing facilities; sounds obvious but needs stating. There are feed millsbut only one oil processing facility, causing a competitiveness issue.3. The developmental strategy lessonsFrom a strategy perspective it would probably be more effective to combine all livestockfeed requirements in the same developmental program to achieve efficiencies of programactivities and economies of scale in operations.RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE1. Activities to stimulate on-farm production and increase incomes and employmentMaintain a sound technology management system within the business cluster, up anddown the product lines.Continue to develop and expand the producer’s associations as marketing organizationsand advocacy instruments.Promote the resolution of the land tenure issues, land fragmentation and the SOEs.Support proposal for a land trust to manage the leasing of agricultural lands until therestitution claims are settled in court.2. Recommended measures to stimulate agribusiness growth and efficiency in processing,input supply and product marketing that increase employment and incomeRevamp the VAT and import duties and provide exemptions for all essential agriculturalinputs as is done now for fertilizer.Focus on methods to lower the cost feed to compete with neighboring countries with farmsubsidies. Detailed data on feed costs were not available but the project staff andgovernment officials agreed that the cost of imported seed and fertilizer and fuel,compared to costs to farmers in neighboring countries are significantly higher.A project could assist private investors to upgrade and utilize existing storage facilities toreceive larger shipments of feed grains through consolidation of orders from existingagribusinesses, input suppliers and feed mills.USAID should assist private owners to utilize and upgrade current processing facilities tobe used for oil seed processing. Kosovo needs just two or three medium size unitsstrategically placed in the production areas, utilizing existing structures.Focus more on marketing. Market programs should identify products that are conduciveto a small local market and a competitive regional market. Do not let new technicaladvances cloud the vision of sound marketing/business decisions.Maintain strong information (daily Ag radio and TV programs) and technical supportthrough local staff. Foreign specialists in needed technical fields can be brought in onshort-term basis.Set up a lobby group/association (perhaps AKA) for poultry and legislative reform for theagricultural sector. Such as to prevent the dumping of poultry parts in Kosovo fromEuropean over-production. That is reported by project staff.Evaluation of the USAID/Kosovo SME 97 May 2004and Agriculture/Agribusiness ProgramsVolume I