The president, Astrid Pérez, asks to compensate production costs, to have irrigation available and to improve promotion
SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Oct. 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Astrid Pérez, opened the doors of the Chamber to 60 rural women from the islands this Wednesday to give them a voice and listen to their demands, problems and concerns.
Farmers, ranchers, beekeepers, cheese makers, pinocheros, winemakers, viticulturists, agricultural market workers, agrotourism entrepreneurs, merchants of kilometer zero products and leaders of agricultural and livestock groups sat in the chamber representing the thousands of rural women of Canary Islands.
After welcoming the attendees, arriving from islands such as La Gomera, El Hierro, Tenerife and Lanzarote, Astrid Pérez highlighted that “the Parliament of the Canary Islands wanted to value all the economic, social and cultural contributions that rural women have made. to the Canary Islands”, and valued the effort and dedication of “so many women who, for years, were invisible, even though they worked very hard”.
“In recent years, rural women are becoming empowered, betting on innovation and new technologies, entrepreneurship, assuming ownership of agricultural and livestock farms, and facing many obstacles and obstacles that, together, we should overcome,” she added. Astrid Perez.
The president of the Chamber showed the commitment to collect all the demands raised by the participants in this meeting and, as conclusions, transfer them to all the parliamentary groups, the Government of the Canary Islands, the Government of Spain and the seven island councils “to that their legitimate requests reach the public administrations that can attend to them”.
The president of the Canarian Parliament concluded, once listening to the stories and demands of these rural women, the existence of three fundamental questions to which the administrations must respond.
Specifically, it is about compensating for the high production costs faced by the primary sector in the Canary Islands in order to make our products more competitive; the availability of irrigation water, which avoids the drama of crop loss and reduced productivity, a challenge that must be faced from the different realities of the eight islands of the archipelago, and the necessary promotion of local products.
“It doesn’t matter if they are somewhat more expensive, we must convince people of the importance of supporting our rural sector and collaborating, consuming them, to guarantee their conservation for future generations,” he indicated.
WOMEN IN THE CANARY ISLANDS CHEESE FARMS
This day of the Parliament of the Canary Islands dedicated to rural women, who celebrated their world day last Sunday the 15th, included the presentation, in the afternoon, of the study ‘Approach to the reality of women in the cheese factories of the Canary Islands’.
The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Sovereignty of the Government of the Canary Islands, Narvay Quintero, stressed in the opening that it is “the first investigation of this type to be carried out in the Canary Islands”, and reflected on the “registry of shared ownership, which tried to make rural women visible, but unfortunately it has not had the success” that would have been desired.
Opened in 2016 and 2017, “it only has 8 women registered, and it barely reaches 18% in all of Spain,” she explained.
The deputy director of the Chair of Agrotourism and Wine Tourism of the Canary Islands of the ICCA and the ULL, Gabriel Santos, intervened before giving way to the presentation of this study on women and cheese factories, by the researchers and members of the Board of Directors of the aforementioned chair, Ana María Morales Hernández and Anabel Calderín Castro.
The program closed with the discussion panel ‘Rural Women of Cheese’, moderated by Zebina Hernández Hernández, and with the participation of cheese makers Vidalina Armas (El Hierro), Macarena Expósito (Gran Canaria) and Antonia María Rodríguez (La Palma).
