MEAT Sector Analyse

Meat Sector Study
Referring to the table it results that during a 30-year period (1950 - 1980) both agricultural
enterprises and co-ops experienced a large concentration of land under their property. In
1980, average size of an agricultural enterprise mounted to 2690 ha and for agricultural coops
the analogue figure was 1260 ha. By the end of ‘90s, all agricultural land belonged to
492 agricultural units (both enterprises and co-ops).
Under these conditions, approval of a law for agrarian reform was a necessity. First moment
that marked the initiation of the process was the approval by the Albanian Parliament of the
“Law on land”, No 7501, 19 July 1991. This law conveyed the first steps of an agrarian
reform law. It involved the issues of land distribution, but constituted ate the same time a law
for land property. It paved the way to a series of laws that aimed, on one hand, to complete
land property rights and on the other hand, to regulate normal implementation of the reform.
Another important problem emerging during the implementation of the agrarian reform is the
attitude towards Law on Land and the ways of its implementation in different areas of country.
Attitude towards Law has been accompanied with some problems related to its
implementation.
• Law non-implementation or lack of full knowledge of law: In this case, farmers have
returned to their former property before the socialist system. This phenomenon is
predominant in some areas, especially in north Albania; interesting to note that the
today’s average farm size is not bigger in the north than in the south.
• Partial law implementation or partial knowledge on law: Partial implementation of law
means that farmers have returned to their formerly properties, but they have seized as
much land as defined by law. This phenomenon is predominant in central Albania.
• Correct implementation of law or full knowledge of law means that all households own
land according to the Low and they also own official documents for all land plots.
These phenomena have laid the foundation for different conflicts. Most prevailing conflicts
are:
• Conflicts between ex-owners regarding property boundaries
• Conflicts between farmers who didn’t own land, but became land owners during the
implementation of 1945’s Reform, and the farmers that claim this land because of in
heritage
• Conflicts between native farmers and the ones that settled in after 1945
Regardless of the attitude towards law implementation, process of land privatization
preconditioned the presence of a minimal size and considerably fragmented farm. This was
caused by proportional division of land and the amount of land available in every village.
Implementation of land reform brought about the following picture as regards the farm size.
Around 58 % of farms are up to 1 ha, 30.1 % has 1-2 ha and only 11.8 have over 2 ha. –
Experts mentioned that many people giving up their farming activities do not rent out officially
their agricultural land and therefore the statistics look worse that reality; nevertheless the
average farm size is too small in Albania.
Mountain areas
The Albanian agriculture in mountain areas has its specificities related to their special land,
climatic, natural, historic and social conditions. As a result of these conditions, farms in these
areas are smaller, product and input markets are more distant, rural infrastructure is weaker,
development opportunities are more limited, economic and social development is delayed,
schooling and education are less advanced and poverty more widespread. For these
reasons, there are harder development challenges and the policy approaches to agricultural
development may differ from those applied in lowland areas.
Value Added Tax
Meat Sector Study, page 33