13,000 olive trees planted on Montenegrin coast

The picturesque interior of the Bay of Kotor, the village of Vranovici in the municipality of Kotor, on the one hand a beautiful view of Bigova Bay and the open Adriatic Sea, and on the other hand, the Tivat Bay and the city of Tivat - is an ideal place for a residential complex or an elite hotel! But this is not the opinion of the company Agrar Čelebić. They felt that it was much more important to preserve the authenticity of this landscape and enrich it with local tree species, the fruits of which for centuries fed local residents, giving them golden drops of oil.

It was here that Agrar Čelebić decided to create an olive grove by planting 13,000 olive trees, and their total number will reach 40,000 in the future. In addition, they found irrigation water on rocky soil and plan to build a water mill in the future and start production olive oil and other olive products.

This project proves that the modern method of planting olive groves and producing high-quality olive oil can be applied on rocky terrain, not used for this type of agricultural activity, in the very depths of Kotor Bay. In Bok there was a rule that a young man cannot marry if he does not plant at least a hundred olive trees. Despite this, most of the land in the Bay of Kotor, which is suitable for planting olive trees, remained uncultivated, but at that time our ancestors did not have the technologies that exist today.

As a result of a public tender of the Government of Montenegro, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, which leased a plot of land near the village of Vranovichi - the municipality of Kotor, the project of the Agrar Čelebić company was adopted, which provided for the creation of an olive grove in the area.

Land with an area of ​​156 hectares was leased for a period of 30 years, and the investment program provides for the planting of olive trees on an area of ​​125 hectares, as well as the construction of facilities that will serve agricultural production and increase the value of this area (farmyard, oil mill, etc. .). The company plans to implement the entire investment program by 2023.

Wanting to introduce a new product for the Montenegrin and regional markets, Agrar Čelebić chose olives that are not found in Montenegro and the neighboring countries of the Balkan region - Spanish olives such as Picual. Other planted varieties of olives are also Spanish, but already more famous, namely: Carlesca, Arbequina, Manzanillo Sevillano.

At present, more than 1.5 million euros have been invested in the project, and the total amount of investments provided for by the investment program is about 8,000,000 euros.

Despite large investments and a long payback period, the company expects that in the long run this project will contribute to the development of agriculture and tourism in Montenegro, and the olive grove itself will become one of the most beautiful places on the Montenegrin coast. The company also believes that all “interested parties” will benefit from this project, and the interested parties are the company itself with its employees, the local and wider social society and the state.