The state-run Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) is reaching out to Bosnian farmers with a new project aimed to diversify and improve their incomes.

Unveiled yesterday in Bratunats, the project seeks to help the economic recovery of eastern Bosnia, heavily affected by the Bosnian War from 1992-1995.

As part of the project, TİKA will encourage family farms, create genotypes for sheep and goats, increase populations of livestock, introduce vertical farming applications and organic walnut farms, foster the empowerment of women in rural areas and promote greenhouses. In Srebrenitsa, TİKA will also contribute to a greenhouse project, with a total of 80 families set to receive greenhouses with irrigation systems.

As part of the genotype project, 40 family farms will be given 420 sheep and 420 goats. The Turkish agency aims to reach out to 500 people by taking the project all across Bosnia-Herzegovina.

A honey packaging plant will also be built as part of the project, with a yearly capacity of 50 tons. The agency started similar projects in other Balkan countries two years ago with the purpose of improving the lives of people in rural areas in countries considered relatively poor when compared to other European countries in the West.

Moldova and Albania were among the beneficiaries of the project.

A previously little-known state apparatus founded with the purpose of helping former Soviet republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the state-run TİKA has re-branded itself over the past decade as a major source for Turkey's international clout by reaching out to people in need across the globe.

It is at the forefront of the effort to connect with communities and countries that Turkey may have overlooked in the past.