The Council of Agriculture, through the Andalusian Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training (IFAPA), is studying to carry out joint actions in research and training together with the Spanish Association of Tropical Fruit Producers.
To this end, the president of IFAPA, Jerónimo Pérez, and his team have held a meeting in Seville with the directors of the Association, headed by José Linares, where they have addressed the issues of most concern for this sector, whose activities concentrate mainly in the provinces of Granada and Malaga.
Some of the issues discussed included the need to study farming techniques that can boost productivity, as well as making progress in the search for new avocado rootstocks tolerant to fungal diseases and analysing the water consumption of this type of crop.
Those attending the meeting also discussed the possibility of creating a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) or Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) for the avocados, and Ifapa looked into the institute’s capacity to collaborate in the fields of technology, post-harvest and agro-food industry.
The association has also raised the need for more specialised training, which, after the meeting, has been decided will be channelled through Ifapa’s centres in Malaga, as reported by the Board in a statement.
In this sense, four technical workshops for the tropical sector will soon be organised at these centres, dealing with the propagation of avocados, biological pest control, irrigation and nutrition. There will also be a meeting dealing with the irrigation and nutrition of mangoes.
The meeting also served to raise some of the difficulties that the sector is currently facing, such as the limited access to water for irrigation, the aging plantations or the yield per hectare compared to other countries, as well as the expansion in the number of varieties, which would make it possible to extend the production schedules.
Andalusia is the largest production area in Europe because of the subtropical Mediterranean climate of Granada and Malaga. It has 9,400 hectares devoted to avocados, 3,100 to cherimoyas and 2,300 to mangoes.
The Spanish Association of Tropical Fruit Producers was established in 2013. It is headquartered in Velez-Malaga and currently brings together 254 producers with more than 2,424 hectares of tropical fruit crops.
Source: Fresh Plaza