Rectangular Agriculture
Albania 2
After Terroir’s take on Albanian architecture, we promised you something more rural. Field patterns, seen from the air, initiated the angular theme. Here you can see why:
Agriculture, we were told, is still very important to the Albanian economy. We decided to check this out and see how Albania compared with its neighbours and some of the world’s big players. Using https://www.statista.com (for no better reason that it’s easy to use and seemed to produce roughly comparable figures to other websites we looked at) we discovered that around 20% of Albania’s gross domestic product (GDP) does indeed come from agriculture – rectangular or otherwise. As an aside, a further 10% comes from remittances sent from abroad by the Albanian diaspora.
Looking simply at agriculture, here are some interesting comparisons which do, indeed, confirm the importance of this sector to the Albanian economy.
We started investigating what Albania produces as part of our attempts to identify the many fruit trees which were in flower – in orchards, in back gardens, beside roads and tracks, and in a whole variety of plots which didn’t fall into any of those definitions. The angularity theory was already becoming eroded.
We spotted apple, pear, plum, cherry and lemons but were temporarily discomforted by these enthusiastically large and curvaceous blossoms. Quince, of course: soon to become buxom fruit, alongside their more familiar companions.
One could be forgiven for dividing Albania’s countryside into three main geographies: absolutely flat; very hilly; vertiginous. Google Translate insists that the Albanian for undulating is ‘valëzuar’, but I bet no one ever uses it.
It was the ‘absolutely flat’ that had started my obsession with the rectangular nature of lowland Albania. Valley bottoms and some more extensive plains are characterised by small, oblong plots separated from each other by narrow ditches. On the assumption that the ditches fulfill either irrigation or drainage functions (some were indeed carrying water) then there must be a gradient but this is invisible to the eye of the passing tourist. Fences and hedgerows hardly feature at all.
We did occasionally see larger areas of pure wheat, but most of these small rectangles grow a variety of different crops: wheat of course, but barley, oats, potatoes, grass, vines and olives were also obvious. Many plots were tilled but still bare, presumably awaiting the planting of a rich variety of vegetable crops, a selection of which we were eating every evening. Herbs are also highly valued in Albania – for medicinal use as well as for cooking and cosmetics - and fields of sage or lavender were also spotted.
For days we didn’t see any form of mechanisation, just families with bent backs either sowing vegetables or cutting grass with scythes. Eventually we began to spot small tractors but in hilly areas, ponies, mules and the occasional donkey were also visible, kitted out in their pack saddles, waiting to be allocated an errand or a load. Cattle were also taken out to graze, either tethered or accompanied by a herdsman/woman/child.
The ‘very hilly’ landscapes seriously weaken the ‘rectangular agriculture’ theory in all aspects except one: hills appear to rise from the valley bottoms with an almost explosive suddenness. Albania does rivers big time. They carry silt and gravels which they deposit with remarkably evenness across the valley floor. The hills, however, are made out of tougher stuff which is anything but horizontal. The break of slope, where hill meets vale is nothing if not hard, sudden and dramatically angular.
These uplands are rich in deciduous woodland with an ample ground flora which kept the group’s botanists very happy – and, at times, puzzled. As Albania is well endowed with limestone uplands, it reminded us a little of the chalk and limestone habitats of home – but on steroids. The abundance of wild phlomis (below left) was also a clear statement of the proximity to the Mediterranean.
These hills are also the domain of sheep and goats, of bells and of shepherds. Who needs fences when the shepherd and perhaps a dog are constantly on duty and who will return the flock to the shelter of the farm before dark?
Hills can also be productive if they are terraced. But terracing requires considerable labour, to convert a sloping hillside into a stepped one, and a willingness to wait while the crop of olives or fruit trees, or whatever can survive this tough environment, matures sufficiently to bear a crop worth harvesting. One of our Albanian references postulated the use of slave labour (apologies for being unable to find the quote at the time of writing) and in a way this may be true, as a story, told by our guide - Mr G - demonstrates:
When Mr G was at university, the students spent their summers at camps, but not in the sense with which we are familiar. This student labour force was, well, ‘used’ to build terraces and plant trees in areas which were otherwise underproductive. Despite having little choice in the matter, the students did have a wonderful time, working during the day and larking about (Terroir’s word not Mr G’s) in the evenings. Mr G was very proud of the trees which he had planted and revisited them from time to time. But, by the time these trees were mature enough to bear fruit, the regime had changed and land was being redistributed to private owners. Many, many of the terraces we saw were no longer in productive use.
And the future? New uses for rural land will inevitably include tourism. Already the coast and some lake sides are very popular and already have, or are in progress of constructing, the necessary infrastructure.
But holidays in the ‘vertiginous’ landscapes are developing more slowly. Albania’s mountains, and their role in Albanian history and culture, are quite extraordinary. Possibly the best description which we have read to date is Rose Wilder Lane’s ‘Peaks of Shala’ - a record of a journey made in 1921, and available for free download via The Project Gutenberg. Others may have met Albania’s mountains via the activities of Britain’s Special Operations Executive during WWII or, more peacefully and more recently, via Robin Hanbury-Tenison’s book, ‘Land of Eagles’. Today, visiting hikers are increasingly exploring the mountains during the brief summer window when such activities are relatively safe, and new hotels are being constructed at the ends of the few roads which penetrate the world of these craggy horizontals. Good for Albania but less so for the wilderness which they represent.
