A project to improve the plant multiplication system to guarantee the conservation of local varieties from sweet potato It is being developed on a plot located on the La Mosca farm, in Valle de Guerra (La Laguna), owned by the Cabildo de Tenerife, which carries out the initiative through the Agriculture, Livestock and Fishing Area.
This initiative around the sweet potato, a product rooted in the Canarian agricultural heritage and in the island pantry, started in March and will end in early September. Twelve people participate in it and it is integrated into the Ecological Transition Employment Project (PETE) 2020. This action is co-financed by the island corporation through the Employment Area, the Government of the Canary Islands and the State Public Employment Service.
The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Javier Parrilla, highlights the importance of training in the primary sector and, in the specific case of the sweet potato local varieties conservation project, «The initiative comes to improve the benefits of a food of great importance in our gastronomy and traditional pastries». «We must preserve the diversity of this product that has been with us since the middle of the 16th century. In Tenerife we have more than 20 varieties “, underlines the counselor, who also highlights” the excellent work being carried out by the staff of this project. ” The aforementioned tasks are carried out on the La Mosca farm, where the cultivation and conservation system has been changed.
These tasks began with the stripping and smoothing of the ground. The pots, with a capacity of approximately 100 liters, were placed on reticular blocks 70 centimeters long and 23 high, raising the height of the crop to allow it to grow more in length of the sweet potato branch, which is the material that it reproduces.
