Despite recent years of economic growth, poverty persists in Albania as a result of continuing low employment and low-income levels, particularly in rural mountain areas, and it reflects the unequal pattern of economic growth. Many small-scale farmers lack access to market outlets for their produce, particularly in mountain areas. Without outlets, farmers cannot increase their incomes and standards of living. Their problems are compounded by a scarcity of market information, lack of compliance with food hygiene and safety standards and inadequacies in packaging and labeling, which make their products noncompetitive. Many farmers, asserting reactive, post-communist individualism, are skeptical of the potential benefits of more formal business collaboration, such as member-run marketing and trading associations.
Farm production and productivity are hindered also by limited technical knowledge, obsolete equipment and limited availability of inputs. Markets are distant, there is a lack of financial services and the ageing farming population is composed mainly of women because men migrate in search of employment. Unless processing industries are stimulated to act as catalysts in supply networks, opportunities for Albanian farmers will remain under exploited, and commercially oriented farming will remain a sporadic and unorganized activity.
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