Healthy food production modeled after Italian - Srbobran plans to develop agriculture and tourism in Beljanska Bara

The Beljanska Bara area that has recently acquired the status of a nature park is eyed by businessmen from Lombardy who would like to make it a significant tourist destination. A Srbobran delegation was recently staying in that Italian region, where they presented the potential of their municipality.

- Businessmen from Lombardy expressed special interest in the Beljanska Bara, a streamlet about 40 kilometers long, which is declared a nature park by an agreement between Srbobran and Becej. They have a protected nature park called Ticino and would like to share Lombardy's experience in the field of ecology and participate in the transformation of the Beljanska Bara area into a tourist destination. It would be possible to develop both hunting and fishing tourism here – Srbobran Mayor Zeljko Bogojevic says to eKapija.

The municipality owns Elan Hotel that it bought in 2012 for RSD 9 million. This facility, which was once deemed one of the most beautiful tourist and hospitality facilities in Backa, was closed for being unprofitable. The municipality then took over the hotel in order to make it the backbone of development of spa and recreational tourism in this town, and they are now searching for investors.

Considering that Srbobran is going to host the Vojvodina Workers Olympics in 2015, construction of swimming pools and sports fields is also in the pipeline.

- Tennis courts are already finished. We are yet to build swimming pools for which the project and technical documentation is already prepared.

People at Srbobran are working on the healthy food production project that should be implemented in the territory of the nature park Beljanska Bara.

- We have recently visited farmers in Lombardy. The only thing we need to do is to model healthy food production after theirs. Healthy food is priceless nowadays. Everything produced in the broader area of the protected nature park Beljanska Bara is 15 times as expensive as products made elsewhere – Bogojevic explains.

Our interlocutor points out that he expects farmers to join their forces in order to start healthy food production as soon as possible.

S.O.