At the geothermal fields of Drama, local investors, young and old, take advantage of the underground warm waters and cultivate asparagus or create modern green houses with zero energy costs that produce colorful peppers, tasty tomatoes and other wonderful vegetables all year long, with better than usual prices. In the same geothermal zone, modern companies dry out edible olives in special driers using the warm mater, to create sweet, desalinated Thasos olives which are exported to the demanding markets of the developed world.
In Serres and Veria, new coops and groups of peaches and pomegranates are currently enjoying the fruits of contract farming. The sale of produce is guaranteed, the prices have been agreed and – most of all – the funding of cultivation is secured from the advance payments at the start of the growing season. More and more farmers are opting for contract farming.
A bit more south, away from the shores of Pieria and in the depths of the Thermaikos Gulf, in specially marked maritime zone, new clam farmers are deploying ropes where impressive mussel colonies are growing. Shellfish are cleaner, tastier and grow larger in the open, cold sea and as such earn a higher price in the international markets.
In Magnesia groups of livestock farmers cooperate with feed growers and producers and can now produce real traditional yogurt or fresh milk that will soon be available by the big chain stores.
In the Ionian’s deep sea fish farming zones, new farming units equipped with sensitive feeding tubes are being developed in concrete cages. The fish divd out how to pinch the tubes, which release a set amount of food, reducing waste and pollution. The results are impressive, with fish populations increasing and the cost dropping.
The livestock farmers in Arcadia discovered the potential of goats cheese and the many possibilities attracted the attention of French producers, who are about to invest 20 million euros for the production of unfermented goat’s cheese.
The Minister of Agriculture Athanasios Tsaftaris is preparing special cultivation zones in Peloponnesus for oranges and lemons and is seeking out ways to encourage the blossoming of olive groves, in order to increase production and tackle the reduced spring pollination that is attributed to the temperature increase.
Likewise, the cactus-like aloe is the prime choice in the arid areas of southern Crete. About 2,500 acres of aloe are cultivated over there and a new processing unit will produce new products from aloe extracts, which are essential to the rapidly growing make-up and beauty product industries worldwide.
When speaking to Mr. Tsaftaris, the most specialized minister in the Samaras cabinet, one is filled with optimism, as one can sense that out there, another Greece is rising up – a Greece of modern production and innovation, which has nothing to do with the misery of the noisy urban centers.
Antonis Karakousis
– Originally published in the Sunday print edition
