Minister Šarović and Yuriko Shoji: Six million dollars for BiH agriculture support

Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mirko Sarović and FAO Deputy Regional Representative for Europe and Central Asia Yuriko Shoji initialled yesterday in Sarajevo a framework of programming of the Food and Agriculture Organization for Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period 2018-2021. This agreement is very important for BiH considering the needs of the agricultural sector, which, as Šarović said, employs almost 19 percent of the total workforce in BiH and participates in a gross domestic product with about seven percent.

 

“The rural development strategy has enabled us to sign this document, because it defined our basic goals, and made it possible for us to support the agricultural sector at an even higher level. FAO's support in this period will amount to US $ 6 million. The Swedish Development Agency SIDA, the European Union, the Swiss Development Agency and others will participate in this programme, " said Minister Šarović.

 

The goals of the framework document, according to Minister Šarović, are primarily rural development, that is, support for family entrepreneurs, and especially women and young people. One of the objectives of the programme is to support climate change mitigation, which is evident in BiH in recent years. According to Minister Šarović, the framework programme will be of great help for the agricultural sector. The programme was developed in cooperation with all institutions in the field of agriculture and rural development at the entity and cantonal level. Yuriko Shoji expressed her satisfaction with signing the document.

 

“In BiH, we are building strong relations with regard to the development of agriculture and the rural sector. Within this program, we will work in several areas, including the assessment of the value chain, the use of natural resources and the reduction of disaster risks,", said Ms. Shoji.

 

The UN FAO works on the implementation of several projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and one of them is the programme of strengthening the Centre for the Improvement of Agriculture in Sokolac, which will, integrating different resources within the wider regions, contribute to the improvement of agriculture and rural development by ensuring sustainable income of the population of mountain areas. Minister Šarović said that the implementation of the so-called zero-census, which implies that a list of all cattle (cattle, sheep and goats) is carried out throughout the country, is a priority task to ensure the conditions for the export of red meat to the European Union and to any part of the world. Šarović recalled that there is an Agency for Animal Identification in BiH, which registers every head of cattle that receives its passport.

 

"According to the list, the registry contains about 1.2 million heads of cattle in BiH, but this number is much smaller in reality. In order for BiH to be able to export red meat to the Union, it is necessary to know the exact number of heads that fall into the category of red meat. It is estimated that this list would cost BAM 1.5 million, and that it could be done in two months," Minister Šarović concluded.