“New Agribusiness: Herbs in Kosovo”
by Jackson Allers and Sevim
August 11, 2004
Slug: Kosovo is a land rich in agricultural potential – a fact acknowledged both by the international administration and the various parallel institutions that exist here. But few remember one agribusiness that Kosovo was once known for throughout the entire region: medicinal and aromatic herbs.
Kosovo is a land rich in agricultural potential – a fact acknowledged both by the international administration and the various parallel municipal institutions that exist here. But few remember one agribusiness that Kosovo was once known for throughout the entire region: medicinal and aromatic herbs.
Hello
and Welcome, you are listening to UNMIK On-Air
Sounds
of Collecting in the fields….
Kosovo’s
forests, valleys and mountains are perfect biospheres for growing any number of
rich agricultural products.
According
to botanical estimates, Kosovo has approximately 200 species of wild herbs, of
which around 40 have significant commercial value.
Currently,
only few Kosovo herb collectors operate because of the
limited possibilities to market their products.
One Kosovo-Albanian business that is attempting
to fill the void is “Agroproduct” in Istog in the Pec/Peje region of Western Kosovo.
Ramiz
Avdijaj is the owner of “Agroprodukt.”
He says that the medicinal and aromatic plants being cultivated on
“Agroprodukt” land are not being grown anywhere else in the Balkans.
Ramiz
Avdijaj: “I’ve been doing this job for two years. We started slowly first
100 or 200 square meters and now we have expanded our farming operation. We have somewhere around 4 hectares
cultivated and 2000 square meters with different sorts of the plants. Kosovo is
a region, which is very rich with aromatic and medicinal herbs. Because we
don’t have mature or overdeveloped industries, the air is less polluted then in
the other industrialized countries.”
Among
the plants in Kosovo that are easily recognizable and readily available are
mint and peppermint.
Local
herb cultivators say that the best time to grow most herbs and medicinal plants
in Kosovo is between April and October.
Agroprodukt
owner, Avidijaj also sees new potential in the world of spices
Ramiz
Avdijaj: “ We have 5 types of spices and the spices we are growing are used
for cooking: we have for example,
oregano, parsley, thyme and we also have red oregano”.
Herba
company…Rasim’s wife working in the
tea--bag packaging machine..his kids packaging…
Another
Kosovo Albanian company, “Herba,” from Pec/Peja, works closely with
“Agroprodukt.”
Rasim
Shatri: “We started with only a few herbs.
The first herbs that we started with were Mint and Peppermint…”
Rasim
Shatri is the owner of Herba. She says that family participation is a key
component to the success of the business.
All
of the immediate and extended family are involved in the daily business, and
according to Shatri, each day the family’s knowledge of aromatic and medicinal
plants grows – opening new doors and increasing the likelihood that Herba will
be successful.
Rasim
Shatri: “…Now we have around 7 to 8 types of plants that we cultivate.. They
are medicinal or the sort that we are use for tea. Then we have sort of the
plant, which is highly recommended by doctors called Marshmallow Root. Now we are
also in the second program, an experimental phase where we cultivating a new
batch of herbs. So far the results are surprisingly good.”
Although
coffee has more of a hold on the drinking palette’s of Kosovans, tea
cultivators like Herba are gaining an increasing market share within Kosovo –
as seen by the company’s growing finances.
Add
to the fact that Herba is one of the only tea producers filling their tea bags
with local herbs, and it’s not hard to see why.
Again,
Rasim Shatri
Rashim Shatri: “This year
we produced a lot. I’m talking about the plants that we are using for our needs
in the domestic market, but we also have a good amount for export. Interest on
the export side is very substantial, and we have already begun to collect and
cultivate herbs that our partners are interested in. they’re mostly from
Albania who have years of experience in the business. Wherever domestic
interest is lacking, we have interest from some European countries and
America”.
One
of the major problems that exist within the small culture of herb producers in
Kosovo is that hardly anyone has proper knowledge of medicinal and aromatic
plants.
Hysen Beqiraj: “There are plenty of medicinal herbs that we simply don’t know enough about, and we encourage herbalists to come and help with the process of identifying the potentials here. Kosovo is very rich with medicinal plants and the people are not conscious enough to know that we have herbs which are of an incalculable value.”
Meanwhile,
projections for the success of this revitalized agribusiness model are
dependent upon the immediate interests of domestic markets, but long-term
success is seen to be in the expansion of export clients, like the United
States and the UK, whose medicinal and aromatic herb markets are flourishing.
That
is all for this edition of UNMIK ON-Air. Thanks for listening and stay tuned.