We are on the threshold of the long-awaited rehabilitation of the reform program on the way to Montenegro joining the European Union. Parallel to the above, there is the impression that officials from the field of Montenegrin agricultural economy they do not see decades-long problems in this economic branch or see them as they would like, and not what they really look like? Can anyone seriously hope for success on the chosen path, given the current state of affairs and the necessity of radical reform changes in the economic area in question, it is hard to believe? The only thing known for certain is that silence is a bad strategy!
I know a lot of well-intentioned people who claim that the responsible persons in the Montenegrin agricultural economy simply do not see the fate of this economic branch that has been ravaging the Montenegrin agricultural space for decades.
Contrary to the loud claims that we have taken a serious step on the road to a developed Europe, the aforementioned people live with the fear that the scene is purely satisfying the form without content and substance.
Despite the unfinished initial results (fields of viticulture and winemaking, production of honey, beer, olive oil and meat products), the analyst's assessment is that in this economic field in the past transition period, Montenegro and its people did not get what they realistically expected?!
Arguments for such a claim are visible both in terms of the level of use of natural resources available to Montenegro (6 percent), and in terms of the place and criteria used in the world to determine the level of development of agriculture and rural economy in a country. When it comes to this ranking position, Montenegro is in the penultimate or last place on the ranking list of developed European countries.
How to bridge the deep gap between the situation in this economic branch on the one hand, and Montenegro's high dependence on food imports on the other (value expressed over 600 million euros on an annual level), no one even tries to think and offer solutions that would smell like an exit from of the existing state?!
Realistic analysts of developments in the area in question see the solution of the highlighted problem (in the long term) in the fact that Montenegro can solve 70 percent of the domestic food needs of the population and tourists from its own production, and the remaining 30 percent by exporting and importing the missing quantities of food from the foreign market , which would completely resolve the multi-decade imbalance in this economic branch, and free the state from the financial burden it has been suffering for decades.
About these or similar goals and prerequisites for their realization, none of those responsible can say the first letter of the alphabet?
On the other hand, the agriculturally and economically developed countries of Europe (which supply food to a significant part of the world's population) have been implementing a strategy in this area of business for several decades, which includes the production of health-safe food - and are realizing enormously high food stocks that arrive all over the world's meridians.
It is not too bad to remind that at the end of 1992, Montenegro had a solution that was based on the knowledge and practices of the agriculturally developed countries of Europe at the time, which the Parliament of Montenegro adopted by consensus at that time. However, don't lie down, not long after that, the agrarian government at the time rejected the adopted parliamentary (strategic) solution on its own, introducing a system "without a system" and centralist management of agrarian production, which turned out to be disastrous. And today we are where we are!
It is inevitable to remind that the same Europe is now changing its earlier strategic commitment to mass food production, and focuses on exclusive and high quality food production (on small and medium-sized holdings - farms) trying not only to maintain the existing one, but to strengthen its position on the world market with this maneuver.
On the third side, climate and temperature changes seriously threaten this area of the economy (the most vulnerable economic branch to these changes), which is why the agrarian developed countries of the West long ago defined state programs to counter the onslaught of this scourge and these programs are in an advanced stage of implementation; even their science created an alternative solution to the traditional diet of people in extraordinary conditions, while in our country no one tries to open a serious dialogue on this topic, let alone define a program and the actors of its implementation?
And finally, the EU announced a financial support project for the countries of the Western Balkans worth six billion euros for the next five years. In the Montenegrin political milieu, it is said that Montenegro could (if it has a Program and finished projects) withdraw about 420 million euros for its development needs.
Contrary to what has been highlighted, in recent years Montenegro has had major problems with how to spend grants from foreign donors and creditors (Abu Dhabi fund and Ippa II program), because incredible things are happening - there are no projects, or better, interested investors? This puts the state in a delicate situation, what to do with unspent funds? It is not known that such a case has happened in practice in any European country?
Few people understand what to expect in this situation from the announced five-year European program in Montenegro?!
And the criteria for using the announced European donations to the Balkans compared to earlier times are more than rigidly clear. There is no longer the possibility that, as in the past, decisions and spending of funds drag on for years without knowing the end, and even less the possibility of investing funds without knowing their economic effect?
The time has long passed when Montenegro had to look in the mirror in the area in question, and realize that times have fundamentally changed and that the "sleeping Montenegrin beauty" needs to wake up from its long-term sleep, and recognize itself and the times in which we live. ?!
The author is an agrarian economist and specialist in agricultural and rural policy
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