SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 31. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Today, Thursday, the Governing Council has approved an increase in credit for an amount of 50,000 euros to cover the cost derived from carrying out the Viability Plan for the cultivation of pitaya in the Canary Islands under agroecological management, carried out by the Canarian Institute of Agricultural Research (ICIA), attached to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries.
The difficult situation of tomato cultivation in the Canary Islands as a result of competition from third countries, the successive pests suffered by crops, the increase in production costs and the effects of Brexit make it necessary to have the alternative of reorienting farms less competitive towards other types of crops that allow producers to obtain a decent income, without distorting the current conditions of the internal market.
And one of those crops, already introduced in the Canary Islands, is the pitaya, which presents interesting market possibilities, even more so if it is grown under agro-ecological management, given that this favors sustainability and its commercial interest may be greater.
With the aim of developing this form of cultivation with guarantees, preliminary research and testing work is being carried out, for which there is a proposal put forward by the ICIA that includes cultivation both in the Institute’s own facilities , on the La Estación farm, as well as on a demonstration plot located in La Aldea de San Nicolás, a municipality that concentrates a large tomato-producing area on the island of Gran Canaria.
The actions to be carried out include the selection and collection of plant material, in collaboration with the island councils; the conditioning of the greenhouses; assembly of trellising systems; the trial set-up; the monitoring of the crop during its different phases (vegetative, flowering and production), and a market study.
This plan was launched in the year 2021, in which, in order to finance the implementation of the Viability Plan for the cultivation of pitaya in the Canary Islands under agroecological management, a credit transfer was made to the ICIA for its condition of competent for the programming, execution and monitoring of research and development activities and transfer of agricultural technologies in the area of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands for an annual value of 31,875.00 euros.
In order to conclude the activities included in the plan, and as there is no specific financing available for this action, this budget modification file is promoted for its endowment.
