Country report Albania

The development of the protected environment
The vegetable production in the protected environments, (greenhouses and tunnels), is one of the priority of Albanian agriculture. This is due to the high efficiency level of the production related with the other plant productions and of the demand level for these products. These productions have an important level of production and the market is in most of the cases assured. On the other side Albania is an Mediterranean country and can offer favorable climatic conditions for the development of this method with all types of vegetables.

I. Greenhouses.

The surface level of the greenhouses during 1990 -2004 is:
(in ha)

	1990	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004
Heating glass greenhouses	150	10	15.	20,5	14,9	14,8	18,3
Plastic heating greenhouses	-	-	-	1,5	1,9	2,8	9,3
Non heating glass greenhouses	200	157,6	131,5	127,5	114,5	94,6	79,4
Non heating plastic greenhouses	730	13,4	126.	222,5	342,5	399,6	553,6
TOTAL	1080	181.	272,5	372.	473,8	511,8	660,6

-The period 1990 - 2000 was accompanied by radical changes in the Albanian agriculture, the decollectisation process and the agrarian reform done in 1992, had an negative impact in the greenhouse system and most of them was destroyed due to a long process of privatization.
-To analyze the development of greenhouses in Albania during the last ten years (1994-2004) we will refer to 1994, this is due to the fact that from this year and on the sector is tending to be rehabilitate,
-Form 1994 the greenhouse surface is grown by three.
-From 1994 is grown by four the surface of plastic greenhouses, now the farmers are tending to implement contemporaneous types of greenhouses.
-The glass greenhouses surface heating or not are in continuous diminutions. The technologies that they use are obsolete ('60) and are implanted in Albania during the '70. so the are physically and morally totally amortized. The existent surface in regression.
-The annual rate of greenhouse is of 50 - 60 ha par year. Farmers, with proper financial funds, generally make the implementation of greenhouses.
-The plastic not heating greenhouses are generally simple one where technologic element as irrigation, nutrition thought irrigation, ventilation etc. are not present. -During the last years, we can see the tendency of farmers to implement greenhouses of contemporaneous technology, helped also from the Agricultural and Food Ministry.
- The greenhouses are located generally in the west side of the country, where the climate more favorable. In Lushja district that takes part in this area are located more than 40% of the total greenhouse surface.
The augmentation of the greenhouses surface, is accompanied by a production augmentation, as is shown by the table:
in tons

	1990	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004
Glass heating greenhouse	14500	550	1010	1649	1241	1071	1152
Plastic heating greenhouse	-	-	-	180	448	1157	773
Glass not heating greenhouses	16500	5260	8970	6852	8842	7267	4471
Plastic not heating greenhouses	54000	656	9741	16493	29067	33029	46369
TOTAL	85000	6470.	19721	25174	39598	42210	52765

- Excluding the glass not heating greenhouses, where the yield has decreased from 1994 till now, all the other types of greenhouses, have noted an yield increase during the respective period. It is important to underline the important yield increase for the plastic not heating greenhouses.
- The vegetable production in greenhouses is variable due to the level of technology application in respective greenhouses, particularly important in the yield rate is the creation of the appropriate climate by heating the greenhouses, but the price of heating products is prohibitive, for the farmers.

The yield of production is variable according to the technologic level of the greenhouse. We should underline that the majority of the greenhouses (the existent or the new one) have a low technologic level, without technologic elements. So the yields are not very respectable.
KV/ha.

	1990	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004
Glass heating greenhouse	970	550	673	804	836	1071	630
Plastic heating greenhouse	-	-	-	1200	790	1157	831
Glass not heating greenhouses	825	334	682	537	772	768	563
Plastic not heating greenhouses	740	479	773	741	841	830	838
TOTAL	787	357	724	677	836	825	800

-The vegetable yields in the greenhouses are grown in a respective period for all the greenhouses types.
-The plastic not heating greenhouses present stabilized yield during the period, because they are not determinate by other external factor as the heating etc.

-The yield in the glass greenhouse is decreasing due to the low and obsolete level of technology.
-The yield of greenhouses the type is depending form the vegetables structure applied in the respective greenhouse type.
Two are the main cultures that are cultivate in the Albanian greenhouses, tomato and cucumber, because these cultures are judges as a most efficient one. The augmentation of the greenhouse surface has created some problems in the marketing of the cultures. The offered quantity in some period of the year is bigger than the capacity of the market demand; the situation influenced on the price of these cultures. During the last years the trend is to sow other types of vegetables, like pepper, pumpkin, melon, string bean etc.
The vegetable crop surface during the period is:
in ha

	1990	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004
Tomato	750	132,2	199,8	246,2	298,7	309,3	371,3
Cucumber	250	9,8	51,1	95,6	152,6	153,2	207.
Other vegetables	80	38,9	21,6	30,2	22,6	49,4	82,3
TOTAL	1080	181.	272,5	372.	473,5	511,9	660,6

-The increase of the greenhouse surface is accompanied with the increase of the surface sowed with tomato and cucumber. The surface of the other vegetables (pepper, melon, string bean pumpkin etc.) is always very low except the last two years where the trend is positive for the other vegetable compared with the based crops (tomato and cucumber).

The table shows the vegetable structure in the greenhouses:
in %

	1990	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004
Tomato	69,5	73,1	73,3	66,2	63,1	60,4	56,2
Cucumber	23,1	5,4	18,8	25,7	32,2	29,9	31,3
Other vegetables	7,4	21,5	7,9	8,1	4,7	9,7	12,5
TOTAL	100	100	100	100	100	100	100

-The information shows the predominance of the base cultures (tomato, cucumber) in the structure of the vegetables planted in the protected areas.
-The trend of other plant cultivation is becoming more important, together with the precocity index with help the greenhouse system to be more efficient and important in the future .

II. Low tunnels

The cultivation of the vegetable in the low tunnels is an old practice of cultivation but this method is spread during the last years. This method is used specially in micro areas where the climate conditions, are much more favorable. Using the appropriate conditions of climate, covering the land, and using a contemporaneous technology, the farmers can obtain prominent results, especially in the precocity index.

The tunnel surface during the period and vegetable type is:
In ha

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Melon	36	458	273	730	1025,2
Cucumber	21	9	9	4	51,7
Pumpkin	3	-	1	-	-
Tomato	7	2	1	3	7,01
Other vegetables	-	1	2	5	9,5
TOTAL	67	470	286	742	1093,41

- The tunnels surface sowed with vegetables has grown during the period except some variations.
-The vegetable cultivation in tunnels is done respecting the technologies used also in the other regional countries (land and plant covering, directed nutrification and irrigation etc.)
-The main sowed plants are from the cucurbitaceous family as the water melon and melon.

The production level during the period is:
in ton

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004
Melon	1436	23448	11578	25844	42730
Cucumber	482	474	706	155	386
Pumpkin	60	-	6	-	-
Tomato	369	112	72	106	333,5
Other vegetables	-	113	45	144	375
TOTAL	2347	24147	12407	26249	42824,5

The production growth is due to the surface augmentation because the yield is not increased considerably during the period.

The future prospects of the protected areas.

The futures prospects of the protected areas can follow two ways:

1. The augmentation of the surface with an annual rate of 40-60 ha, so we can foresee that in 2010 we will reach the level of 1000 ha of greenhouses planted with vegetables. The augmentation of the low tunnels surface will be more important, due to the low level of investment per surface necessary for this technology compared with the greenhouse one.
   The trend shows us that the greenhouses that will be plastic one, simple (low technologic elements), less implanted will be the technologic modern one.
   The investment funding will be:
   - Private funding for the investment of the farmers or private subjects that are specialized on the greenhouses cultivations systems.
   -Another alternative will be the funding by the government programs
   
2. the greenhouses development will ameliorate the technology of existing surfaces. The implementation of the new technologic systems like dropping irrigation systems, directed nutritive systems, ventilation, will ameliorate the production index of these surfaces and what is the most important the precocity and latecomer index.