The Impact of Support Policies on Enhancing Farmer-Market Partnerships

Statistics, but also many studies, show that Albanian agriculture faces high costs of activity and as a result, it is characterized by a very low level of efficiency of economic activities. The lack of regional agricultural development policies is accompanied by
a number of negative phenomena: (1) the efficiency of agricultural production turns
out to be very low (almost 1/3 of potential opportunities); (2) the farm is "too far" from the market and processing industry and the level of competitiveness of agricultural and processed products both in the domestic and foreign markets is quite low; (3) the impact of the public policies used so far in support of agriculture, does not turn out to be the expected one. The policies implemented so far have focused more on the fight against poverty and not on a long-term strategy for a harmonious and sustainable development of agriculture. We estimate that a policy/strategy of
regionalization of production at the country level according to counties and districts and the design of agricultural support policies on this basis, among others, would enable: (1) increasing the level of production capacity in agriculture; (2) more opportunities for building optimal production structures; (3) rational use of land, labor and other productive skills; (4) intensification of production through the application of new, more efficient production technologies; (5) more efficient use of production
inputs and environmental protection; (5) development of efficient marketing systems
and integration of farmers in markets.