00:00Red gold. That's what they call this spicy pepper in southern Serbia.
00:06The Goat's Horn is an heirloom pepper variety that grows exclusively in this part of the country
00:11and is the primary source of income for the entire village of Donja Lokosnica.
00:17Ivan Kostic has been stringing peppers together for drying at harvest time for many years.
00:22He says that this summer's yield is less than half what it normally is.
00:26The reason for this is that the region was hit this summer by hail,
00:30four months of drought and then heavy rainfall.
00:57This summer's extreme weather has had a devastating impact on agriculture across Serbia.
01:04Farmers are hoping that the government will declare a natural disaster
01:08and provide the promised financial support.
01:11Experts say that while state subsidies do provide quick relief, they only help in the short term.
01:18They stress that Serbia needs to consider long-term strategies
01:21because extreme weather events such as droughts,
01:24high temperatures and heavy rainfall will occur again in the future.
01:51We need to consider some rational methods for watering, drip-by-drip and so on.
01:56And the third key factor is the choice of species to be harvested,
02:01varieties to be harvested and locations where agricultural production takes place.
02:08While the farmers in Donja Lokosnica are beginning to doubt that a solution
02:12will be found for their traditional pepper variety,
02:15they know how important the Goat's Horn is to the entire village and refuse to give up.
02:21We will fight. It grows only in our new area here, a few kilometres away, and it's successful there.
02:30In Donja Lokosnica, the villagers will continue to do whatever they can
02:34to ensure that the Goat's Horn pepper variety will survive
02:38and can be enjoyed by many generations to come.
Comments