The perspective of rural development in Albania – Evidence of microfinance in agriculture.

Left totally unchanged after transition, Albanian farming derived from land reform is still characterized as being a self-sufficient agricultural model: a smallholding venture of around 1 hectare with low external inputs and labour-intensive techniques. Over the past decade Albania opened its doors to the market economy but that process seems not to have extended and embraced the rural economy. Why? The hypothesis is that along with land reform effects enduring due to typical land market inelasticity, there is a strong pillar of this peasant household’s equilibrium: farm structure consolidation during Albanian transition is a peculiar part-time smallholding venture which could be labelled “transnational part-time peasant farm household”. This subject doesn’t demand credits to purchase land orienting itself toward the market. It demands credit to strengthen its own self-consumption-oriented structure. So the aim of this paper is to consider why the analyzed micro-credit system, and, by extent, this special smallholding, would contain elements of sustainable development dynamics in Albania.