This sector in our municipality is characterized as a combination of leading food processing companies and huge areas of arable land accompanied with very dynamic rural agribusiness activities.
Almost 65% of our municipal territory is agricultural arable land spreading over rural areas, with very intensive agricultural production of vegetables, fruits.
The agriculture sector plays an important role in our municipality as well as in Macedonia’s economy through its contributions to GDP (Macedonian agriculture accounts for 12% of GDP), employment, trade and the rural economy. About 65% of the total land area is rural of which 2942ha is agricultural land, with 90% cultivable land and 10 % pastures, orchards and vineyards and 2,370 private agricultural farms. As in many Western Balkan countries, 40% of the populations in our municipality live in rural areas.
Officially, almost one fifth of the working force is employed in agriculture, 14.8% of the value added of the manufacturing sector in the food industry and around 10% of exports is generated in agriculture. The combination of Continental and Sub-Mediterranean climate, characterized by long, warm summers and short, not too severe winters, and fertile soil provide generally excellent conditions for production of a range of food products.
The major contributors to exports within the food products segment, by a wide margin, are fruit and vegetables (40.8%) and beverages (29.0%). Within the beverages part wine and beer is the most important component in the municipality of Gazi Baba - Skopje.
Commendably, as of 2009, the Government has made the HACCP standard obligatory for all food producers.
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