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Cultivating a Symbol of Peace: Revitalizing Montenegro’s Olive Oil Industry
Montenegro, with its 450,000 olive trees, was once the main olive oil supplier for the former Yugoslavia. The collapse of Yugoslavia, subsequent economic sanctions, and isolation caused the olive oil industry to stagnate. For a decade the olive orchards fell into disrepair, harvesting was done manually by picking olives off the ground, and farmers sold their products in unlabeled containers.
Today, a series of olive oil industry revitalization projects is underway thanks to USAID's Community Revitalization through Democratic Action (CRDA) program implemented by International Relief and Development (IRD) in southern Montenegro. Through this program, the American people have financed a series of projects that are making a difference in the lives of olive farmers and setting the stage for Montenegro's success in regional and international olive oil markets.
In 2002, USAID partnered with the Olive Growers' Association in Bar, a coastal Montenegrin municipality with the country's only existing olive oil production, as part of a CRDA project to provide mechanical harvesting equipment. Members of the Olive Growers Associations from Bar and Ulcinj—another coastal Montenegrin city—attended two olive growers' conferences in Croatia. There they learned about new olive oil production trends and the industry's operations in other European countries, including Italy and Spain. Bar agricultural expert Tatjana Perovic went on a study trip to Italy, one of the biggest producers and exporters of olives and olive oil in the world, to learn about the newest insecticide technologies. Upon her return, Perovic trained local olive growers on pest control techniques that do not endanger the product.
After these initial investments in Montenegro's olive oil industry, USAID continued to assist the sector by financing an olive oil processing factory in Mrkojevici, an area of Bar famous for its olive orchards. USAID also provided specialized equipment for improving olive oil quality control to the Institute for Sub-Tropical Vegetation in Bar. According to Dragutin Martinovic, the president of the Bar Olive Growers' Association, these investments resulted in an estimated threefold increase in olive oil production.
Bar and Ulcinj's successes encouraged the olive orchard owners in the Boka Bay region, also located on the Montenegrin coast, to begin revitalization of their orchards. At the time, more than 75 percent of the 130,000 olive trees in the Boka Bay region were abandoned, had not been pruned for years, and were overgrown by weeds and bushes. USAID, through its partner IRD, donated chainsaws and grass-cutters to help owners prepare their orchards for renewed production.
Putting Montenegrin olive growers and olive oil producers back in a position to contribute to their local and regional economic development is just one of the CRDA program's achievements. However, it may be the only one that promises to pour meaning back into a once popular local saying: "Be as proud as Bar is of its olive orchards."
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| USAID-provided tools are the initial step toward preparing Boka Bay's olive orchards for renewed production |
Montenegrin olive growers from Bar and Ulcinj traveled to Croatia to learn recent olive oil production trends |
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