Agriculture and tourism on a common path

Cveta Radojičić from Drlač sells almost everything she produces on her farm to guests who come to that place by the Drina on vacation. He currently cooperates with two rural tourist farms in his neighborhood.

“For the most part, it’s cheese, homemade cream, bread if they ask for it to be kneaded, homemade pies, pies, homemade eggs, for the season summer peppers, tomatoes, and we sell that when it arrives, so we have everything homemade, raspberries and blackberries, too. And can you to make money? Yes, it is possible to make money,” says Cveta Radojičić from Drlač.

Along the banks of the Drina, from Gornja Trešnjica to Ljubovija, there are more guests than locals in the summer. The local population used this information as a business opportunity.

“This is where the most important element is the communication between us restaurateurs and local food producers. We have a colleague nearby with whom we cooperate every day when guests are there regarding food. They eventually become friends with those guests and those guests want our farmers to send them those goods to Belgrade, Novi Sad, Valjevo,” adds Dragan Tadić, from Drlač.

The association of the local population is a path in which there is an opportunity for the development of rural tourism, but also for the youth to stay in rural areas. In the Ljubovi region, tourism has been expanding for years, and the production of healthy food is an area in which, they say, we should invest.

“As a result, the incomes of individual farms and tourist entities have increased, but so have the incomes of the Municipality of Ljubovija. In the coming period, the Municipality of Ljubovija will continue to encourage cooperation between agriculture and tourism, and I hope that in this way it will create new jobs and increase incomes of all actors,” points out Milan Jovanović, president of the Municipality of Ljubovija.

They see agriculture and tourism in Ljubovia as strategic activities, and unpolluted nature and fertile land for the production of organic food – as a lure for local and foreign tourists.