The Cabildo presented the Agrojoven 2022 Awards yesterday, awards that aim to promote the professionalization and participation of young people in the development of the primary sector to contribute to generational change. The president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín; the Island Councilor for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Javier Parrilla, and the Island Director for Agriculture and Rural Development, Cayetano Silva.
Pedro Martín stressed “the importance of supporting young talent that decides to undertake on the Island and much more if it is in the primary sector, where a generational replacement is so needed.” The counselor Javier Parrilla, for his part, highlighted “the capacity and commitment of the new generations of farmers and ranchers, increasingly prepared, trained and sensitized.”
In this edition, the prize for the best business initiative, endowed with 5,000 euros, has gone to the ecological artisan cheese factory of Jenifer Santos Cabrera. The cattle farm of this entrepreneur is located in a protected area in the highlands of the municipality of Arafo and houses a hundred head of goats, is committed to the revaluation of abandoned rural areas and also has an electricity system with 100% renewable.
The second award (4,000 euros) went to Antonio Díaz Álvarez, for his Malpaís Hot Sauce project, a registered trademark that produces 100% handmade hot sauces, seasonings and jams. The company has 8 types of sauces, from the least spicy and sweet, to the most extreme.
The third prize (3,000 euros) was awarded to David Jesús Cabrera, an agricultural technical engineer, for his company producing, distributing and marketing organic red berries in the municipality of Fasnia, mainly red raspberries, blackberry berries and strawberries. In this company, both the management and the work are carried out in an ecological way through biodynamic agriculture.
Likewise, in the best business idea modality (which are those projects that have not yet been launched), the first prize went to Celia Martínez Navarro, for a fodder self-sufficiency project to reactivate livestock activity in Güímar; while the second prize has recognized the ecological farm La Caléndula, owned by Pedro Pablo Gil, which focuses on the cultivation of edible flowers and organic tender shoots.
