Keeping Montenegro’s flavours alive
“I’m very excited about receiving the GI certification because this will give us new opportunities, open new markets and businesses,” he adds.
Produced mainly by women, Kolasin Lisnati sir (layered cheese) is one of the newest GI-labelled foods in northern Montenegro. ©EBRD-FAO/Dermot Doorly
Danka Sekularac from northern Montenegro lives a life off the grid. Her house runs on solar power. The water is fetched from a nearby stream. Her food is homegrown.
Her surroundings - the mountain ridges of Biogradska Gora National Park with its sprawling pine forests, rolling meadows, pristine streams and glacial lakes - exude an air of a world untouched.
But life can get tough here.
Smallholder farmers like Danka used to rely heavily on agriculture. So much so, that a bad blueberry harvest or honey season could be enough to put their livelihoods at risk. Opportunities were scarce, and young people moved or were tempted to move elsewhere.
But with help from FAO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), opportunities started opening up.
Some 100 smallholder farmers from mountain villages in northern Montenegro are now reaping the benefits of agro-tourism and/or getting recognition for preserving centuries-old culinary traditions, and a way of life that, elsewhere, has been long abandoned or is slowing dying out.
30-year-old Danka hosts tourists, mostly from other parts of Europe, in “katuns” – centuries-old wooden huts used in the past by nomadic herders. She offers them guided hiking and horse riding, lessons in cheese making, and enthralls them with fresh, organic food.