It is a bitter taste left by the decades-long transitional period in the development of agriculture and rural economy in Montenegro. At that time, the state acted like a deceased person, powerless to do anything to stop the retrograde processes and decisions, which significantly set back the production, market, economic and development results, which we had in the long 1980s.
Agriculture and the rural economy are eternally in conflict in their existence and development, with numerous factors - natural and human in nature. Depending on the extent to which the state and its profession and science will master those limitations, its economic and development progress depends. There is a great interdependence between the limiting factors in the process of agricultural production on the one hand, and the state's determination to create the most favorable environment with its agricultural policy that will allow the employees (farmers and companies) economic progress and dynamic development in this economic branch, on the other hand.
The return of the transitional concept
As a product of uneconomic development policy in the indicated period, Montenegro experienced the decline of this economic branch, which arose as a result of numerous wrong decisions both in the area of ownership, legal and economic relations (uneconomic privatization of land), and during the not at all easy transition from the previous - failed economic system into another - capitalist economic and development system.
For too long, such a state of weightlessness in this economic branch has lasted, while Montenegro as a country found itself wondering - how to heal the open "transitional wounds" on one side, and on the other, how to create a new one green agrarian policy which would be based on professional scientific foundations and practices of developed countries in Europe and the world?
State, help
And, what to do now? Call on those responsible to return the deprived rights and obligations to the state, so that it can start doing what it should, and the farmers what belongs to them both according to God's and human nature.
Those who do not recognize the salient facts, cling to the lifeline of their decades-long ideology and strive to declare the protagonists new (reform) green agrarian policies with an outdated and outmoded concept, while they neither want to see nor hear what their agrarian-transitional wisdom has led us to?
Thus, instead of the necessary reforms, the "fathers" of the previous transition are trying to preserve the previous and current situation, even blocking any attempt at professional scientific dialogue on this topic?! This kind of story is happening, against the long-standing demands of European and American experts and politicians, about the necessity of fundamental reforms in the economic area in question.
As a confirmation of long-standing support for reform in the disputed area, in the following text, I will try to remind the interested public of several crucial problems of the current agrarian moment in Montenegro, which no one else can solve except the mother state, its knowledge and capital and strong institutions of the agrarian system. hand in hand with actors of agrarian production, who are now not even in the goat's horn:
- Firstly, no one can deny that in the difficult years after the end of World War II, a successful breakthrough in the development of agricultural production was made in Montenegro for the first time, thanks to the very well established agrarian policy of that time, on the one hand, and on the other, because for the first time, with the unprecedented enthusiasm of the then generation of experts, professional scientific principles were strictly respected, which opened wide the door to the development game in agricultural production, as a strong flywheel of the entire development of the economy in Montenegro.
Thanks to such a market economic and development orientation, early food products from the warm Mediterranean area of Montenegro were available to consumers throughout the former Yugoslavia, as well as in the markets of Milan, Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich, Prague, Warsaw and others.
- The exposure of agricultural production to the vagaries of nature and the post-war deficit of professional and scientific knowledge, determined the state policy of Western countries to treat the entire agricultural (rural) area in those countries as a unique development mega project, and against it according to the development possibilities and priorities of that time, direct the development of rural areas, on the basis of new scientific knowledge available to everyone and substantial state capital, with the aim of preserving the life and economic development position of people in the entire rural area of their countries. The French agrarian school of that era was a school for the entire developed western world today.
The entire scale of the problems of this complex activity in agriculturally developed countries was solved by the economic interest of economic entities (farmers and companies) on the one hand, and on the other by the vital interest of the state, which were mutually compatible in every respect.
- Awareness of the necessity of high investments of state (incentive) capital as a prerequisite for creating a favorable environment for economically sustainable food production and the development of a diverse economic structure in the countryside, contributed by the non-reimbursable investment of state capital, such as: processes of converting land (natural substrate) into meliorated land, capable of highly profitable and economically sustainable production, then, investments in solving numerous infrastructural problems, solving the concept of market function, personnel education, etc. as a prerequisite for the development of a successful and sustainable rural economy.
- The creation of good agrarian legislation, as a prerequisite for the creation of a legally economic and stimulating environment for engaging in food production and related activities, was and remains one of the primary tasks of the modern state, on the way to creating a developed agro-industrial environment and a market-economically stable agrarian system.
- The development of institutions of the agrarian system capable of bearing the burden of scientific and technological progress in the mentioned economic branch, then the formation of research, design and investment institutions capable of introducing modern production and market competitive awareness into the development of food production and the rural economy, became the guarantor of the economic effect of investment investments , which was again unthinkable without the strong support of the state.
- The gradual creation of a modern market economic policy in which the market will dictate price relations and the economic position of food producers (with intervention measures of state funds) has led in the developed agrarian countries of the West to the modern division of labor in the relationship between the food producer and the market (consumer), while where the marketing of production fell to some other market - economic organization, with which the food producer is relaxed about the market for his products, and the producer - farmer is obliged to produce as many and better quality products as possible, and if he does well, his interest and economic future are guaranteed, and vice versa.
- Finding alternative (innovative) solutions to traditional agricultural production, which are dictated by the upcoming climatic (temperature) changes, are unthinkable without the direct support of the state for the project in question;
- The conceptual resolution of the question, whether farm food production in the countryside is the only development direction, or whether there are other modalities, such as melioration and production capacity of free land areas, belongs to the priorities of the state agrarian policy. Specifically, we are talking about land in the coastal zone of Lake Skadar (the largest natural resource in Montenegro), Bjelopavlić plain, Lješkopolje, Crmničko, Ulcinjsko, Mrčevo, Tivatsko and Sutorinsko polje, etc. Undoubtedly, the previous strategic issues were and remain to this day, the concern of the state in the short and long term, and represent the backbone of the concept (strategy) of the state's concern regarding this issue, not only in the agrarian economy, but in the entire system of economic development of the state.
It is highlighted all the more that 60 percent of the world's food needs are provided by the developed countries of Europe and the American continent from large production areas (complexes), which enable the application of the most modern technical and technological solutions, and significantly affect productivity, market competitiveness and the economy of work in this area.
And at the end
The first obligation or step of the state in our country is to gather domestic and foreign smart capital, and to create a concept (strategy) of agricultural and rural development in the short and long term in synergy with all actors. (Green Economic Strategy) which will be based on the specificities of domestic natural resources (land and climate) and the market, and professional and scientific knowledge on the one hand, and on the other, the positive experiences of agriculturally developed countries in Europe and the world.
The claim that Montenegro does not have the opportunity and capital to start the new one flywheel green economic development is unsustainable!
The author is an agrarian economist and specialist in agricultural and rural policy
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