“In the first six months of this year, food exports are 13.9 percent higher than last year, which was a record, and this gives us additional security that we have markets to which we can export all the surplus,” said Minister of Agriculture Branislav Nedimovic today.
Speaking at the opening of the national dialogue on food systems, Nedimovic said that although we have markets to which we export surplus, the state also faces the challenge of preserving those exports.
“When we enter the structure of that surplus, then we have reason to fear, especially that at the moment it sounds good for field crops, such as wheat and corn, which have record prices. That is why the challenges are great, because we have to preserve exports and to increase it constantly and easily, we can reach six billion dollars in food exports, maybe next year,” said Nedimovic.
That is why, he says, it is important that Serbia does not export only primary agricultural products, but semi-finished products that come from the food industry or finished products.
He points out that when large trade chains appeared in Serbia, everyone thought that they would “suffocate” the Serbian agrarian, and he adds that this was how it seemed in the first two or three years.
Nedimovic states that this has changed in the last year and a half, and pointed out that farmers are increasingly inquiring about entering retail, as well as working on meeting their standards.
He says that Serbian agrarians saw it as a chance for a fixed price, but also as an opportunity for their products to be on foreign markets, because, he reminds, retail chains are actually multinational companies.
He said that it was a chance for the entire Serbian economy and said that it was important to invest in dairies, packaging of fruits and vegetables, in fruit selection.
“With these investments, we can export food not in the amount of six billion dollars, but exports could reach 10 billion dollars,” Nedimovic underlined and announced that Serbia has made a new measure for the improvement of the food industry.
The permanent coordinator of the UN in Serbia, Francois Jacob, pointed out that Serbian agriculture is resistant to many challenges, which, as it is stated, was also shown during the corona virus pandemic.
In relation to 2019, Serbian agriculture, he emphasizes, also achieved growth in 2020.
Jakob stated that 14 percent of employees in Serbia work in agriculture and that the share of agriculture in our GDP is 7.5 percent.
He points out that these are figures that refer only to agriculture, without other agricultural systems, and that is why, he emphasizes, it is an important economic sector that must be paid attention to.
He explains that today’s national dialogue on the food system is part of the UN initiative and whose goal is to prepare Serbia for the global food summit that will be held this month in New York.
The dialogue, he says, will discuss all dimensions of the food system, including agriculture, but also food distribution, food packaging, the impact of agriculture on the economy.
“It is a very exciting debate on how to transform our food system, to promote a healthy diet, a healthy lifestyle and of course many opportunities for people living in rural areas,” concluded Jakob, Dnevnik reports.
