Coke is freedom

I just spent my entire weekend working and had the best time. I went out to the East of the country to talk with people and learn more about the issues in the agricultural sector. Macedonia is a very small country (of only 2 million people) so it was only a two hour drive from the capital Skopje, to Strumica (pronounced Strumizza).

On the way out there was plenty of opportunity for good conversation with my translator, who is a piano accompanist by training who worked for the Opera of Macedonia, but has switched careers because of the lack of opportunity for growth in the world of music here. She is a multi-talented lady and is by far the best translator I have ever worked with. To my surprise, she told me that life under Tito was not so bad. Sure, you could not speak out against the government, but crime was low, there was a healthy middle class and only some people were a little worse off. Now there is much greater economic disparity, the number of very poor people is growing, and crime is increasing. Under Tito they had a good living, they could afford to go on holiday once or twice a year, and they were allowed to listen to Western music and drink Coke. Live was good.

On the drive I was also able to learn about some of the environmental damage from industrial development. The worst example that I saw was the town of Vesen which was a former industrial center producing metals. The town now has a very high rate of birth defects and the government is debating what to do. With the high costs of clean-up, I cannot see any action being taken any time soon. I also drove past mine heaps as big as the surrounding mountains, areas of massive erosion, and I’m sure I am only scratching the surface of the environmental problems in the country. And yet, people have talked about the potential for organic vegetable production here – do they not know that entails testing the soil to ensure it is not contaminated?

On Saturday I had meetings with the owners of a vegetable bottling company, a dairy, the president of the Association of Cow Breeders, and a vegetable farmer. All of the meetings were extremely interesting, but by far the best was last. This vegetable farmer was a true businessman who understood the market place and had traveled to Kosovo and arranged a contract with a supermarket to export his crop when the local traders were refusing to pay a reasonable price. But in talking to him, I began to understand some of the obstacles facing farmers here. Like in many places, when one person is successful, others try to bring them back in line. The corruption, intense political influence, lack of access to finance, and suspicion amongst farmers and between farmers and traders/processors all provided obstacles that proved insurmountable and he was unable to fulfill the contract.

I spent Saturday night in Strumica and then headed to Negotino on Sunday morning bright and early. I spent most of the day with the grape producers. There were riots in Macedonia last year because the wineries would not pay the farmers for their grapes. In fact, one of the two large wineries (both of which were previously government owned) still has not paid farmers for last year’s harvest which was 13 month ago. The wineries argue that then do not have the funds as they have not yet sold the wine and they need to service their debt first. So essentially the farmers are shouldering the debt of the wineries. When the protests started to grow, donors got concerned and stepped in and loaned the largest winery funds to pay the farmers. On the other hand, the small wineries have exellent relationships with their farmers.

The final stop in Negotino was a visit to the homes of two sheep producers. The sheep are kept for their milk (which is also made into cheese) and for lamb meat. I sat and interviewed both farmers in their one communal room, with the extended family sitting on the sofa and the Macedonian version of MTV playing in the background. I of course, was asked to sample their cheese, and I accepted. I have now learned first-hand of the need to improve the quality of locally produced cheese! It tasted good, but I didn’t feel so good the following day.

On the way back to the Skopje, we stopped off at what I was told was some ruins. It turned out to be ruines of the Roman city of Scupi from the 3-5th century AD. Given that Rome converted to Christianity around the 4th century, the ruins provided an interesting example of a church being built on top of an old synagogue. Unfortunately, the site is only partially excavated and there is no good explanation of what you are looking at. Supposedly the government looks into excavating and developing the site everyone once in a while, but the government of Greece intervenes in a variety of creative ways to prevent its development as Greece does not want the competition for historical tourism.

I feel like I have not done the weekend justice with these brief notes. I could write pages on each of the visits, but time is not my friend at the moment. I still have to type up all the many pages of notes from these many interesting meetings.