Successful Balkans Regional Postharvest Training held October 24-28 in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Four Postharvest Specialists from the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center traveled to Sarajevo, October 24-28, to present a week-long Postharvest Technology training.  Drs. Beth Mitcham, Marita Cantwell, Mary Lu Arpaia and Michael Reid presented 39 instructional sessions over a three-and-a-half day period.  Zdenec Svec from the Czech Republic also presented a talk focusing on regional marketing and trade issues.  The training session was followed by a 1-1/2 day field tour visiting a number of postharvest processing facilities. The training was the result of a herculean effort led by Filip Stoyanovic, Director of a USAID Regional Competitiveness Initiative, and supported by eleven USAID projects as well as funding from the governments of Sweden and the Czech Republic. 

Held at the sparkling Hotel Bristol in Sarajevo, the nearly one hundred participants listened to the lectures and participated in the group exercises in English, or had the option of simultaneous translation into Russian or Bosnian.  The translation specialists and equipment were also taken along on the field tour portion of the trip.

Beth Mitcham, Director of the Postharvest Technology Center said, “We were impressed by the attentiveness of the audience despite the language challenges and 10-hours a day in class.  They were very appreciative of the opportunity to learn from us information that had seemed inaccessible to them in the past.”

Michael Reid agreed, saying, “We had lots of good questions and comments.  Based on our 'snapshot of the country and the industry' there's a lot of room for improvement in postharvest handling of horticultural crops.  There is obvious potential for increasing product diversity and import replacement as well as for exporting high value horticultural crops to the EU and to Russia, if the postharvest handling systems can be put in place.  Following the course I had the opportunity to travel to Dubrovnik and saw quite a bit of greenhouse production of salad vegetables and field production of citrus and other crops on the coastal plain."

It was assumed initially that interest in this postharvest training opportunity would be modest, but as word got around of this unique opportunity, registrations greatly exceeded initial expectations.  Interest in the training was so intense that radio and television crews conducted interviews with the instructors.   Participants represented the countries of Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, and Ukraine.