The Council drives a initiative to help the cereal sector on the island with the acquisition of two machines for growing and cleaning the grain, respectively. Both equipments have been derived, via subsidy, to the Tenerife Cereal Association (Acete), immersed in the middle of the harvesting campaign. Specifically, a packing plant and a grain cleaner have been purchased for a value of 52,331 euros.
The insular Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Javier Parrilla has visited a farm in Icod el Alto (Los Realejos) to see in situ the operation of the new Parrilla machinery underlines the importance of the crop rotation system «for the improvement of the quantity and quality of the final product ”.
Acete already uses in the current 2021 cereal and legume harvest season the machinery for cleaning the grain and the mincer-packer, which will improve the work of these crops on the island. The acquisition of this machinery has been possible by virtue of the collaboration agreement signed between the island corporation and the group.
Parrilla, accompanied by the president of Acete, Francisca Nieves González, and her technical team, as well as the head of the Technical Service of Agriculture and Rural Development and agents of Agrarian Extension, was able to verify last Thursday in a farm in Icod el Alto the tasks carried out by this machinery. In this regard, it underlines that «It has been several years without attending to the request for modernization of the equipment for packing and cleaning the grain. He adds: “This has meant that both the bales – packed with straw – for feeding livestock and the grain obtained from cereals and legumes did not reach the quality that the crop offered or the level that consumers demanded.” For this reason, he adds, “this collection campaign will be different; With this investment, we guarantee a quality product that is more attractive to the consumer at times of high prices for imported cereal ».
Far from self-sufficiency
The island councilor highlights the importance of the crop rotation system for “improving the quantity and quality of the product.” He values: “It is a long way from self-sufficiency, but we must continue the work started with the aim of favoring forage, cereal and legume crops on the Island.” It is also committed to “improving agricultural practices and their mechanization to obtain an attractive product that will displace outsiders.”
«We will continue to support these initiatives because leads to the agriculture we need on our Island: sustainable agriculture», Assesses the counselor. And he sums up: “the incorporation of the crop rotation system with cereals or legumes of local varieties has shown that it improves soils, reduces the incidence of pests, increases crop productivity and maintains agricultural biodiversity.”
The need to renew this machinery given for use by the Cabildo through the aforementioned subsidy is justified in the need to carry out the correct packaging of the cereal, once harvested. Until now the cleaning of the grain has either been done manually or by hiring the service of a farmer who has a machine. Although this cleaning is quite acceptable, it is not carried out with the sufficient quality and efficiency required by grains intended for human consumption, which has repercussions on one of the main problems in the management of harvested cereal: the subsequent commercialization.
This situation has meant that in 2018 the packaging could not be completed due to the obsolescence of the machine that had been used and that during 2019 and 2020 said activity had to be interrupted several times to carry out continuous adjustments and repairs. With the acquisition of the new baler, bales can be made on demand in terms of size, as well as the level of chopping of the straw, to improve both transport and quality of livestock feed.
Acete, as in all previous campaigns, organizes the cereal collection on the Island in the Northwest of Tenerife, area where the crop is concentrated. In this specific case, in the municipalities of El Tanque, Buenavista del Norte, San Juan de la Rambla, Los Realejos and La Orotava.
Sources of the association suggest that this year’s harvest looks good and it can reach nine tons collected.
Total cereal production in Tenerife last year amounted to about 22,710 kilos, of which 15,665 corresponded to chin wheat, 4,695 to rye, 1,700 to triticale and 650 to oats.
