There is a small number of countries, or none at all in Europe, which have destroyed agriculture and the rural economy, despite its enormous importance for the economic and social stability of each country, as is the case with Montenegro.
Biotechnical engineer and retired agricultural economist Čedomir Marović, former director of the Agroeconomic Institute, deputy minister of agriculture and forestry and director of Agrobanka in Podgorica, told "Vijesta".
"There were difficult post-war years, at the beginning of the sixth decade of the last century, when the formation of Peasant Labor Cooperatives scalped this eternal Montenegrin "rudderless duo". of his economy," said Marović.
According to him, the second phase of the decline of this economic branch was marked by the years from the beginning of the last decade of the last century until the present day.
"Those years were the continuation of the sudden return of the village and its economic structure. The foundations of this second phase of the dissolution and devastation of agriculture and the rural economy were marked by a nearly three-decade transition period, in which the agrarian government works without a concept or strategy and many tools that go with it, by which this economic branch, today, has been brought to the lowest level in its millennial duration. Who and how will introduce this vitally important economic branch into the waters of progress, not even a grandmother would be able to guess," Marović said.
He stated that in Montenegro the infatuation of the official policy with industrialization and the transitional invention of making money quickly continues.
"Without the intention of supporting or criticizing anything, what did industrialization bring us from a developmental and economic point of view, and an uncontrolled understanding of the problem of environmental preservation!? And there is no room for a story about making money quickly, in agriculture and in the countryside. In developed countries economy, the advantage to the development of natural and market resources has always been the number one development priority, and that priority has never been outside the scope of state and market policy, whereby the development of the rural economic structure was maximally encouraged with a generous current and development policy, for the benefit of the state and people who live in it. In parallel, or on the same level with the highlighted ones, other primary and secondary activities were also developed, of course in economic harmony, with a well-founded concept of long-term development, and the realistic possibilities of society at a given moment. This way of development, the easiest way to ensure the desired development and economic harmony in one country. Everything here is in disharmony or disharmony. I am inclined to believe that a lot of water will flow until that necessary harmony is established in Montenegro, in a disjointed and completely undefined economic structure and ecologically disturbed balance", Marović believes.
He stated that the transitional stage is burdened with a whole bunch of difficult problems when it comes to this branch of the economy and that privatization in agriculture has turned into its opposite.
"More precisely, the socialist model of devastation of agriculture and the countryside continued (thanks to the exceptional farms, which managed to keep the lamp of the future lit), and against this fact, reliable foundations were not built for the modern, capitalist, model of economic development and development of agriculture and the countryside. And because therefore, we have a situation where, instead of growing, the rural economic structure (livestock farming as the primary branch and a measure of the success of agricultural development in every country) is intensively deteriorating. are maintained and developed, in rather harsh economic conditions. Thus, in the transition process, the production balances from 1989 were halved, and the predominance of losses continued, on productive investments in the countryside," said Marović.
According to Marović, the centralist system of agricultural production management, without a strategy, contributed to this situation, and this situation, with a weak institutional structure that has long since withered, has lasted almost three decades.
"The non-economic concept of development, where all the knowledge in the country is "tied in a knot" and depends on the throughput of one person, has thrown out of function the complex of scientific, technological and market development, whose function is of capital importance for the development of every successful economic branch, investment management takes place without economically reliable foundations and responsibility for what has been done or not done, the lack of valid projects of a production-tourism character in the countryside is evident, the educational system in agriculture, as the driving force of any good development, is a story in itself. Now this system mostly produces staff according to the system of 'doing things the way you know how', the absence of a regional concept and development policy, condemns every concept of agricultural and rural development to failure in advance. A fluid financial function patched together "from change to change" does not instill confidence in the possibility of economic development planning on the village in the long term. The scarce visibility and the major role of the advisory service are a story in themselves, and the absence of good IT support for development makes Montenegrin agricultural production disjointed, non-transparent, incomprehensible, and as a whole non-dynamic," said Marović.
It is inconceivable that for three decades no one mentions Lake Skadar
Good connoisseurs are agitated and worried by the fact that for three decades no one has even mentioned the 7.000 hectares of previously meliorated land, capable of intensive production (social property returned to the previous owners), which could reject the economic effects of two more plantations in Ćemovsko polje, he said. is Marovic.
It is no less surprising, as he stated, that during all that time no one mentioned the regulation of the rivers Bojana and Drima (with the Albanian side), and the production activation of 12.500 hectares in the coastal zone of Lake Skadar and 5.000 hectares in the populated area of Zeta.
"The sooner this project solves the problem of the periodic flooding of the lower and middle Zeta by the high lake waters, which cause enormous damage to the people of that area," Marović claims.
In addition, as he states, regarding the reserve of potential funding sources, they should not obscure the necessity of having technical and investment economic documentation, on the basis of which financial experts would investigate non-reimbursable and credit sources offered by the domestic and global capital market.
"Certainly, the regulation of Drima and Bojana, with the protection of 12.500 hectares from periodic flooding of lake waters, could be financed from European and international non-reimbursable funds. Reclamation works within the cassettes of the subject perimeter would have to be financed from the state fund, which would be formed on the basis of a special law that would have to be passed for this purpose. The agrarian authorities claim that there is enough money, however, there are certainly no ready-made projects," Marović said.
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