Where opportunity takes root
How farmers are turning unused land into sources of income — and building new possibilities for work and life closer to home.
Author: Jona Plumbi
Even on the hottest days of summer, Qatip Doda takes his coffee into the raspberry field.
There is little time to sit. The fruit must be picked every day, and there is always more waiting between the green leaves.
They don’t stop, so neither can we – he says, looking across the farm, his eyes bright with pride.
Five varieties of raspberries are growing where, not long ago, there was a barren land.
When Qatip bought this piece of land in Maqellarë he had a plan in mind – to build cold rooms for storing apples grown in the region. The plan never came to life. The cold rooms were never built and the land remained wasted.
Then, his son Roland saw an opportunity.
GIZ was inviting farmers to try something new: raspberry cultivation. Roland thought they should give it a try.
Qatip was doubtful. Still, the land was doing nothing for him and his family, so he agreed to try.
“I told to my son that if we do this, we have to do it properly, because I am an agronomist by profession.”
The seedlings were planted in early summer 2025. By October, Qatip saw the first fruit. By mid-August the following year, he had already harvested more than three tons.
At an average first-year farm-gate price of around 700 ALL per kilogram, the harvest represented a significant new source of income for the family.
A chance worth taking
Qatip was one of the first farmers to take that chance.
It began in 2024, with an open call for farmers in Dibër and Kukës who had suitable land for raspberry cultivation. Around 40 applications were received. Twelve farms were selected — eight in Dibër and four in Kukës.
The idea was simple: give farmers another crop, and another way of earning from the land they already had. For rural families, having new options for what to grow and how to make their land productive means having new possibilities for earning a living at home.
The knowledge needed to make it work was already growing just across the border.
Raspberry cultivation is widely established in Kosovo, where farmers have years of experience with the crop and its markets. Kujtim Lepaja, the head of the Kosovo Raspberry Association, worked with the Albanian farmers, sharing practical knowledge on irrigation, the care needed throughout the growing season and pruning.
The support was adapted to each farmers’ needs. They received seedlings, mechanical works and irrigation equipment, while contributing themselves to the investment.
The first plants have now had the chance to prove themselves.
Around 90 percent of the seedlings planted sprouted and grew. And when the fruit arrived, there was a market waiting for it.
By 2025, raspberry cultivation expanded beyond its original group. Eight more farms joined in Korçë, while three additional farmers in Dibër decided to invest in raspberries by themselves. In total, 23 families across Dibër, Kukës and Korçë are now cultivating the crop across around seven hectares.
Some are already considering expanding their fields.
The growers are beginning to organize around the crop itself. During Raspberry Open Day, they marked the official registration of the Albanian Raspberry Association.
Building resilience from the ground up
What began with farmers trying an unfamiliar crop is becoming a more diversified source of income for rural communities.
Raspberries are only one way of helping farmers make their land and businesses more resilient. Across its work with farmers, GIZ is helping them find new ways to respond when conditions change — whether that means trying a different crop, bringing a new variety to the field, using technology to improve production or drawing on expertise that was not available to them before.
The goal is not to replace what farmers already know, but to give them more possibilities to adapt, produce and earn from what they have.
For Qatip, the field has produced something else, too.
It has given the family work to do. Together.
Qatip knows what it means when work is not available at home. Earlier in his life, he spent more than nine years as a seasonal worker in Greece. Nine summers working on someone else’s land.
Today, he is working his own.
Roland, the only one of Qatip’s three children who lives nearby, works beside him. His children now have something their grandfather didn’t: the possibility of work and income in their hometown.
Now, there is fruit to pick every morning. The field is still small. The raspberries still need to be picked every day.
Qatip takes his coffee into the field, looks across the rows, and gets back to work.
A year ago, there was nothing here.
Now, something has taken root.
