Macedonia, Switzerland to cooperate in agriculture

The Macedonian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy (MAFWE) Mihail Cvetkov and Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation--Swisscontact representative Rozandi Louw Thursday signed a memorandum of cooperation in the development of organic production over the next three years.

According to the MAFWE, the cooperation includes coordination of joint activities for growth of the organic agriculture sector in Macedonia through networking of organic producers and consumers, increase of awareness over the benefits of organic products, as well as enhancing the consumers' confidence.

"We intend to motivate small agriculture economies, which comprise 70-80 percent of the total number of economies, in producing organic food through training, facilitated procurement of legal protective resources, fertilizers and seeds, and we are also planning to establish a system of contracted production with the same quality, thus getting larger quantities for export," stated Cvetkov.

Louw said: "We are working together with organic farmers in finding opportunities for distributions of organic products at foreign markets, but also improvements and modernization of product quality." Endit