Tobacco production in North Macedonia: challenges and prospects within the industry

Abstract

The tobacco cultivation in North Macedonia represents an important segment within the agriculture of the country. In terms of the quantities of production, the country is rated amongst the ten largest producers of tobacco. The long tradition of cultivation and a strong financial support by government has continued to encourage the production of tobacco, in contrary to the major trends in Balkan and European countries. This work uses 77 questionnaires from farmers who cultivate tobacco in North Macedonia for generating a thorough analysis on the current performance, challenges and characteristics of cultivation. The use of quantitative methods and analyses like frequencies, crosstabulation and correlations are used to generate a detailed analysis on those aspects. More specifically, the study evaluated the demographic characteristics of the farmers, farm size and export performance, importance of foreign markets, subsidies and other related issues. The crosstabulation and correlation analyses reveal significant differences on the perception of farmers towards export orientation, importance of domestic markets, subsidies, long-term commitment to farming etc. These differences are identified in the basis of the farm size, demographic segments, export performance etc. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the challenges and current performance of the tobacco producing farms and provide indications on the efficiency of farm subsidies and the need for more integrated strategies to support this segments of farms in this country.