The mayor of Agriculture of Los Realejos, Alexis Hernández (PP), is clear that the avocado “is on the rise” and, in some cases, it grows at the cost of the abandonment of the vineyard. “We still do not have fully updated data, but it has grown considerably,” he says. Most likely, today it is already above both the vineyard and the banana tree. The keys to this increase are the economic performance of the avocado and the reduction of costs and difficulties in maintaining this crop compared to, for example, the vineyard.
The royal mayor, Manuel Dominguez (PP), highlighted yesterday the importance of having this improved, simplified and accessible crop map in the challenge of increasing the area of cultivated land. At present, the municipality has about 10.2 square kilometers in agricultural or livestock exploitation, which represents 64.38% of the available arable land.
Although crop maps are a tool available since 1998, «Los Realejos City Council is one of the pioneering local corporations in doing so in a more specific way, with a more concrete, more precise and improved methodology. And we have made it more accessible through the municipal website www.losrealejos.es», Stressed the mayor.
This digital tool allows to know in detail the different types of agricultural productions and crops that occur in Los Realejos, plot by plot, in a total area of 1,590 hectares. In addition, the location, type and size of the different livestock farms are indicated.
The architect Sara Martín, representing the team in charge of the elaboration of this local map of crops, explained that her work has had two phases: one of management, analysis and improvement of the available databases, and another of elaboration of a viewer GIS-web “in order to facilitate the reading and analysis of the information with a simple environment, with specific maps, and with illustrative graphics.” All the information is available through the web link https://features-map.echeide.es/.
39% abandonment
The map indicates that around 39% of the arable land in Los Realejos suffers from prolonged abandonment, a percentage to which is added 16.4% of farms abandoned more recently. Apart from the 57% that occupy the main crops (potatoes, bananas, vines and avocados), there is also 5% planted with vegetables, 3% with millets, 3% with home gardens, 2% with citrus fruits, 2% with legumes, 1% with other subtropical fruit varieties, such as mango; 1% with pastures, 1% with temperate fruit trees, 1% with ornamental plants, 4% of land currently fallow or 13% defined as “clean orchard”.
Manuel Domínguez is confident that this information can help “promote self-employment in the primary sector” and the recovery of farms that are currently abandoned and that could be put back into production.
