GET Foundation and DAI support future farmers of Albania

By Lennaert Boekweit

Marketing and selling fresh agricultural products through the internet is not the first item on the agenda of most Albanian farmers or farmer organisations. Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) aims to build capacity for commercial farming in Albania. In two trainings GET Foundation demonstrated the opportunities of e-commerce for agricultural products to students of the Economic University of Lushnjë.

In the past, Albania was isolated by strict communism and a high mountain range. The mountains are still there, but the economy has been opening up in the last decades. The use of internet can be the next step in making Albania’s economy more open. The most important economic sector is agriculture, since it provides income for nearly two-thirds of the rural population and accounts for close to a quarter of the country's gross domestic product. eFresh.com makes it possible to market and sell agricultural products through the internet.

This is why the economic students are very interested in the webinar. The students are working in a computer room in Lushnjë, while GET Foundation gives the training from Zaandijk. The training material and the live demonstration of eFresh.com are projected on a big screen and Denalda Kuzumi, an employee of DAI, translates the explanation. The students also get a chance to practice with eFresh.com and design their own StoreFront. In the final session we evaluate the results, so the students will be able to advise producer organisations in the future how to market and sell their products online.