Archive image of a traditional olive grove in Extremadura. /
The program will take place from March 14 to 17, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the center’s facilities and also in the town of Villasbuenas de Gata
The Moraleja Rural Training Center, attached to the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development, Population and Territory, is giving a course this month on traditional olive pruning.
The training will take place from March 14 to 17, from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the facilities of this training center and also in the town of Villasbuenas de Gata.
“This course is relevant – they point out from the Board in a statement – for its contribution to the maintenance and conservation of the traditional olive groves of the Sierra de Gata”. And they also remember that people interested in registering can do so by calling 927013330.
It is an action financed by EAFRD, which is part of the continuous training program.
More protection for the traditional olive grove
About a week ago, the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA) called for a series of regulatory changes to protect the traditional olive grove, an agricultural ecosystem that brings enormous benefits to society. Specifically, the agrarian organization considers that it is necessary to develop a normative body, coordinated and coherent, that avoids the abandonment of exploitations and the loss of this sustainable productive system.
“During the preparation of the Strategic Plan of the CAP, the Ministry of Agriculture has recognized the critical situation in which the traditional olive sector finds itself,” they assured at the time. The description of that part of the olive sector made in the initial phase of drawing up the plan offered a “worrying diagnosis”, according to UPA. After these conclusions, Agriculture decided to include in the plan a sector intervention aimed at improving the situation of the traditional olive grove.
According to the agrarian organization, in order to start up this sectoral intervention, it was necessary, in the first place, to set up and recognize producer organizations (POs) as requesting and executing entities for said sectoral program. It was the Ministry itself that had to regulate the requirements on such recognition, for which a draft of the Royal Decree for the recognition of POs was proposed, whose deadline for submitting allegations ended last week.
Regarding said Royal Decree of recognition of producer organizations, UPA continues to believe that the proposal put forward by Agriculture “is not the appropriate mechanism for the implementation of the proposed sectoral program.”
POs, as stated in the draft, should not aim to channel aid to farmers. In any case, “a few large producers must be prevented from creating their own organizations by reviewing the parameters included in the standard for their recognition.”
To correct this situation, UPA presented allegations to the Ministry of Agriculture that in practice meant a change of strategy in the roadmap to follow in the protection of traditional olive groves.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.