The US ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie, has stated that Kosovar farmers should prepare to export asparagus abroad, as this is one of the healthiest vegetables that Kosovo can have an advantage in the market.
Supporters of the program, the US Ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie, the director of the USAID mission, Jim Hope and the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development, Memli Krasniqi had come to support the promotion of asparagus.
They visited the farmers who had come to sell the asparagus, and talked with them to see what they came to promote more specifically.
Minister Krasniqi indicated that it has been about 5 years since asparagus cultivation began in Kosovo. According to him, a stable growth has been seen from year to year, which has not only created a safe market for the beneficiaries but also increased their income significantly.
"This culture in its beginnings has started to be cultivated through an extremely good project that was implemented by USAID in Kosovo and then continued in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and with the current AGRO project, in order to reach the cultivation levels which we have achieved today and which obviously has room to expand further, with a greater number of agricultural entrepreneurs to deal with the cultivation of asparagus since it is one of the crops that bring great benefits. From the talks we had with the growers, we see that many of them manage to get 4 thousand kilograms of yield per hectare and many of them manage to sell at an average of 3 euros per kilogram per season and they are really quite profitable. good, compared to some other traditional crops that our farmers deal with", he said.
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Asparagus production in Kosovo
He expressed that he feels satisfied by the efficient partnership they have with USAID, saying that the fruits of this cooperation are being seen and that one of them is asparagus.
Meanwhile, the US Ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie, expects to sell more than 25 tons of asparagus in the local market alone, while the growers' profit will be around 80 thousand euros.
"Raspberries and asparagus have different colors, but both are examples of the progress of the agricultural sector in Kosovo. What we are seeing today is the culmination of years of hard work for the introduction and cultivation of asparagus in Kosovo. Just a few years ago, asparagus was planted for the first time in Kosovo, and during the first season local growers sold more than 2 tons of asparagus. Since then the growth has been really huge and this year we expect to have sales of more than 25 tons, only in the local market, meanwhile, the profit of the growers will be about 80 thousand euros and this is really extraordinary . The profit from planting asparagus is ten times greater than the profit from planting an acre of wheat or corn. In addition, asparagus is very important because it allows them to have cash in hand at the beginning of the season and no other product of mine in Kosovo can bring such a profit", he said.
Delawie said that the cultivation of asparagus in Kosovo is a very big advantage for farmers from Kosovo, since the advantage of this is the possibility to plant it two weeks earlier than in other European countries. This, as he said, opens the doors for Kosovo to start exporting this culture very quickly.
"This is just the beginning, the next important step is to get ready for the European market. The fact that Kosovar growers can harvest this crop two weeks earlier than other growers in Northern Europe, then this gives them a great advantage in the international market", said the ambassador.
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The rare plant being cultivated in Istog, about 8 euros per kilogram
Among other things, he said that today's success is built on previous success and that next year they expect to have 50 more hectares planted with this crop, which will bring income to 50 families.
The local farmers had been very diligent, bringing with them various food products that they had prepared with asparagus.
Armendi, a farmer who had come to promote asparagus, said that this product is expanding every year and more with an increase of 30 percent. He indicated that the asparagus season is the beginning of June.
"Asparagus is one of the healthiest vegetables. It contains a lot of vitamin K, cleans the blood from sugars and fats, protects the heart and is a very good body cleanser", he said.
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The young man from Istog, grower of 3 thousand kg of asparagus per year
He also showed that there are demands for the export of asparagus outside of Kosovo, but that they cannot be covered with this amount that is harvested in Kosovo.
Otherwise, the Agricultural Development and Rural Opportunities Program is a five-year program funded by USAID to develop a more competitive agricultural sector in Kosovo, through technical assistance and grants to farmers, enterprises and other organizations in targeted value chains.
