Sustainable agri-food value chains in the Western Balkans

Underdeveloped, small-scale agricultural production systems dominate the agri-food sector in Western Balkans (WB) region, resulting in low food quality levels, poor access to regional and export markets and high vulnerability to (climate) shocks. In consequence, the region experiences high levels of outmigration and agricultural land abandonment. At the same time, WB’s agri-food sector has a high potential for development given the region’s vicinity to the EU and the gradual integration of WB countries into the EU, which position them favourably to become a more important supplier of agricultural and food products to the EU market. Precondition is that WB countries can develop a future-proof agri-food sector that meets EU standards. In light of EU’s vision on how the European agricultural sector could become more sustainable, more innovative agri-food business models are required for WB that differ from the globalised, large-scale, intensive and mostly unsustainably managed systems. Instead, an alternative business model should start from small-scale systems making use of traditional ecological knowledge and sustainable uses of local resources, while being resilient to shocks to allow creating local added-value and rural employment. It is against this background, that this proposal focuses on the potential of small-scale agricultural production systems and traditional knowledge use to develop sustainable agri-food value chains in order to guide WB countries into the EU and rural development. The project aims to strengthen the links between the 9 research partners from WB and the EU involved, and to identify and draw in new stakeholders in a transdisciplinary research partnership aiming to develop competitive European research project proposals that will identify and detail research and development needs for innovative products and services from agricultural value chains in selected WB locations.