Emanuel Cela a 35 years old farmer of Tepelena lives with his family in a village called Hormova in Tepelena, south of Albania. Their only income are generated from the MAPs business. Together with his wife, and brother, they have collected for many years medicinal plants and dried them.

Recently their family business as regional collector for MAPs has changed from an old model of collecting MAPs without having control towards a model of supporting close to the farmers for cultivation and drying process. The drying of MAPs was done before from individual harvesters in their premises under improper conditions that has affected the quality of MAPs and the price as well.

The situation changed during 2019.  Besnik Koçi a young entrepreneur from Lushnja, founder of BioBes export company invested and supported his regional collectors Emanuel to improve and built a modern drying chamber in Tepelena. The drying chamber is built on Emanuel’s property and it is serving not only to the BioBes’ supplying farmers but also to other Exporters who outsource MAPs from this region..

Besnik stated that our company decided to invest closer to the farmers and harvesters. We have big needs to invest more to our processing lines, but we decided to support the improvement of quality of MAPs and stimulation of cultivation.

We are happy to support and generate employment opportunities for these people most of whom are returnees from migration and young people in rural areas who are interested to cultivate high value MAPs ”, – said Besnik Koçi, founder of BioBes company.

With such innovation, the life of Emanuel has changed as well.  Now he has a small truck and helps the farmers/harvesters to deliver fresh MAPs.

“The drying chamber which was produced for the first time from an Albanian company E.M.SH has improved significantly the quality of MAPs and myself and other farmers have increased knowledge on the right harvesting techniques.  Biobes provided support through agronomist, inputs for the farmers and contract farming for farmers who are interested to switch from wild harvesting to cultivation– says Emanuel.

Drying practices affect the quality of the product destined for export and stimulate more the cultivation. The low standards of drying directly affect the price. Focusing on quality means higher income for exporters and farmers.

Going from wild harvesting towards cultivation in Tepelena thanks to BioBes investment resulted into building of a MAP cluster in Tepelena with various representatives from farmers, exporters, and municipality with the intention to address key sector constraints. Thanks to these positive examples, we believe that through introduction of innovative solutions, we could make the MAP sector more attractive and offer more job opportunities for youth.