Culture, cuisine and countryside

The untamed river valleys and the breathtaking atmosphere of the Vjosa Wild River National Park attracts wilderness enthusiasts and adventurers alike into Albania every year.

And in this national park, near the Bënja thermal baths, is where the Lile family farm and restaurant sits. Along with accommodations and Albanian and Greek cuisine, the Liles’ family business offers wine, gliko (a traditional fruit preserve) and raki, a distilled liquor that is popular in the Balkans and the southern Mediterranean.

In recent years, the number of tourists visiting Albania more than doubled, from 4 million in 2016 to 8.4 million in January-October 2023. This significant boom in tourism has led to a high demand in quality local food and related services.

This presents a great opportunity for family-run agritourism businesses to increase their capacity to meet the growing demands. Albania has recognized that fostering the agritourism sector can create new market opportunities and boost rural development.

Agritourism is a great example of a systems approach that brings together many interrelated sectors: agriculture, tourism, infrastructure, marketing, food, culture and local economies. Addressing these as a whole allows countries to see key blockages to change as well as emerging opportunities for growth.

In 2022, to support the Albanian government in this quest, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) implemented the Sustainable Food Systems in the Mediterranean (SFS-MED) project, funded by the Government of Italy. The project provided trainings, facilitated dialogues between national and local representatives and lent expertise to stakeholders from various sectors to strengthen agritourism and enhance rural livelihoods.

“Until this year, my parents ran their business all on their own. We didn’t know this kind of help was available. Now we are more hopeful and more open to learning from other organizations,” recounts Fabja Lile.

Earlier, their family received training from the Rural Association Support Programme (RASP), a local NGO participating in FAO’s SFS-MED project.

“They helped us not just with material things, like building a greenhouse so we can grow vegetables year-round, they also helped expand our minds,” Fabje adds.

Addressing the rural-urban divide  

The World Bank estimates that urban production in Albania is around 11 times greater than rural production, while the population living in cities is only 1.3 times than that living in the countryside. This is due to constraints such as insufficient infrastructure. Another challenge in rural areas— where the majority of cultivated land is made up of small family farms— is an inadequate labour force, as many young people migrate to cities or other countries in search of better economic opportunities.

Moreover, the ageing rural population struggles to keep up with technological innovations and changing consumer preferences. Despite agri-entrepreneurs modernising production practices, locally grown products still often do not meet the safety and quality standards and the demands of the market.

In identifying these key areas of the rural-urban gap, Albania set a vision for increasing prosperity through collective efforts in all the inter-related sectors surrounding agritourism.

Shared learning

To help achieve this vision, FAO’s SFS-MED project convened farmers, agritourism entrepreneurs, micro-finance institutions, culinary schools and other individuals in the agritourism industry to come together in an inclusive space, encouraging collaboration. A key realization was the need to equip local youth with skills to become agrifood innovators of the future.

“The younger generation has the right attitude to implement better business models, but they lack experience and financing opportunities to start businesses,” comments Eldi Ceco, dialogue participant and head of the ABA Centre, a consulting and advisory business for farmers.

Helping young people foster their skills and find opportunities in the agritourism sector will not only bring new ideas and innovations for Albania but will offer young people an alternative to migrating for better economic opportunities.

Subsequently, the SFS-MED project also brought agritourism entrepreneurs together with agronomists, the local NGO, RASP, and a seed bank to promote partnerships and farm business networks. From these various connections, businesses received training on sustainable farming practices, including reduced water and pesticide use, organic composting and drip irrigation.

The Lile family was able to increase the visibility of their business through labelling and showcasing their products in fairs. They also learned agritourism best practices from the SFS-MED organised study tour to Puglia, a southern region of Italy. This study tour showcased how their Italian counterparts combine organic farming with tourism, offering traditional cuisine based on locally sourced ingredients. It was chance for Albanian agritourism entrepreneurs to observe, learn and engage with the local Italian agritourism entrepreneurs.

Overall, the SFS-MED activities boosted smallholder farmers and agri-entrepreneurs in harnessing the growing demands of tourism in Albania in a way that helped them adopt sustainable farming methods, improve business practices and leverage shared learning to produce safer, higher quality products.