|
Albania
The Land
In 1991 cultivable land in Albania amounted to about 714,000
hectares, about 25 percent of the country's total area. Arable
land and permanent croplands totaled about 590,000 hectares and
124,000 hectares, respectively; permanent pasturelands accounted
for another 409,528 hectares. More than 100,000 hectares of the
cultivable land had a slope greater than 30 percent and was allocated
almost entirely to permanent tree crops, such as olives. Forests
and woodlands covered more than 1 million hectares, or 38 percent
of the total land area. The soils of the coastal plain and eastern
plateau were fertile, but acidic soils were predominant in the
200,000 hectares of cropland in hilly and mountainous areas.
Irrigation and desalination projects, terracing of highlands,
and drainage of marshes, often carried out by forced labor, added
considerably to the country's cultivable land after 1945. Large
population increases, however, reduced the amount of cultivable
land per capita by 35 percent between 1950 and 1987 and by 20
percent between 1980 and 1988. About 423,000 hectares were irrigated
in 1991, up from about 39,300 hectares in 1950. The economic disruptions
of the early 1990s, however, left only about 40 percent of the
country's irrigation system functional and 20 percent in complete
disrepair. Albania also invested substantially in imported Dutch
greenhouses during its drive for food self-sufficiency.
Data as of April 1992
|
