Albanian typical products as a tool towards sustainable rural development

ALBAN JAUPI¹, FATMIRA ALLMUÇA², ERMELA BAJRAKTARI

¹Department of Policy and Rural Development, Agricultural University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania

²Directorate of Programming and Evaluation of Rural Policies, Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Water Administration, Tirana, Albania

*Corresponding author  e-mail: jaupi_a@yahoo.com

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Abstract:

The turn of consumers towards quality, healthy and safe food products results in a new definition of quality that refers to: i). their geographical origin ii). their freshness and seasonality; iii) the environmentally friendly or healthy production techniques; iv). the producers themselves, since societal relationships play an important role between producer and consumer [2]. Thus, there exist certified agro-food products of a spatial character suchas the Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) and the Protected Geographical Indications (PGIs) and certified agro-food products of an a-spatialcharacter such as the organic products [11].The main goal of our case study is the identification of Korça typical products, PDO and PGI potential products and their contribution to the sustainable rural development in order to designing the policy intervention framework in the future. This study is based on a structured survey with the: i.) farmers/producers (381 interviews), ii.) working personnel in various public agencies, iii.)  the businessmen and businesswomen. Moreover, a number of secondary data by public agencies of Korça region, farmers associations, etc.), but also by University papers and studies and scientific journals have been used. A series of elements regarding perceptions and attitudes among consumers was measured, using basic descriptive statistics analysis to describe the responses of the sample under study.According to this study, most consumers prefer their products based on origin that brings to a conclusion that PDOs or PGIs, or Traditional Specialty Guaranteed (TSGs) must be promoted through a Public Private partnership.

Keywords: quality, food, PDO, PGI, Korça, partnership.