“EU4AGRI” brings the story of a successfully implemented investment by the company “OPZ Srebrenica,” which, through the EU4AGRI project, secured new machinery and equipment for its own needs, as well as machines required to place a greater number of products on broader markets.

Ivan Todić, Director of the Agricultural Cooperative Srebrenica, believes that raspberry cultivation is a particularly profitable business that can provide a decent livelihood. Through the local community, the project also supported a wider group of agricultural producers who had the opportunity to acquire small-scale machinery, thereby improving their agricultural production.

OPZ Srebrenica highlights that, together with their own plantations and 80 cooperants, they harvested over 1,050 tons of organic raspberries, blackberries, and wild strawberries last year. All of the produce was exported to Canada, Chile, Brazil, Turkey, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, and other countries across Europe and around the world.

The local community was thus given the opportunity to support and promote a greater number of agricultural producers, as this municipality is currently classified as underdeveloped.

A new public call is currently open under the EU4AGRI, EU4AGRI-Recovery, and EU4BusinessRecovery projects, through which the European Union will support investments in rural tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina with BAM 3.5 million.

The public call aims to boost economic activities in rural areas, create new jobs and preserve existing ones, while also safeguarding natural and cultural heritage. At the same time, it responds to the need for recovery from the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“EU4AGRI” is a four-year initiative (2020–2024) aiming to modernize the agri-food sector, create new jobs, preserve existing ones, and support recovery from the COVID-19 crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The total value of the project, funded by the European Union, is EUR 20.25 million, and it is jointly implemented and co-financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in BiH and the Czech Development Agency (CzDA).