Agricultural Growth and Rural Opportunities

Locally grown, superior quality, extra class asparagus.
Locally grown, superior quality, extra class asparagus.
Agriculture for Growth and Rural Opportunities [ Tetra Tech]

Through the Agricultural Growth and Rural Opportunities (AGRO) Program, USAID focuses on increasing agricultural productivity, marketability, and responsiveness to markets, which will enhance the sustainability and competiveness of targeted Kosovar agribusinesses in domestic and export markets.  

This program provides technical support throughout agricultural value chains that have potential to generate sustainable incomes to producers, ensuring that markets are developed and that processors and packers are able to reliably and cost effectively contract production from Kosovo’s producers.

The program emphasizes working through strategic partners in order to facilitate sustainable growth, focuses on empowering women and youth to more fully participate in this exciting field, and emphasizes food safety and certification programs to enable exports into valuable regional and European markets. Producers will receive dedicated support in order to ensure that they are able to fully respond to  sophisticated market requirements.

The activity has the following objectives:

  • Improve collaboration among critical value chain participants
  • Scale up the adoption of crops and technologies
  • Link products to markets
  • Address food safety and quality issues  
  • Effectively utilize the innovation and incentive fund

Results to Date:

  • 1712 new jobs created.
  • 2237 newly-established hectares under improved technologies.
  • $32 million in total sales.
  • 1609  supply contracts.
  • 6377 People trained.

 

Partners: Tetra Tech ARD.

Geographic Target: Kosovo

Project Duration: Mar 2015 - Feb 2020

Contact: Besa Ilazi