Government creates new programmes to reinforce agricultural diversification in the Azores, announces Vasco Cordeiro
The President of the Government announced in Ribeira Grande that the Government will implement three programmes in 2019 with the aim of enhancing and reinforcing the growth pace in agricultural diversification in the Azores.
"We have made a significant progress in recent years. From 2015 to 2018, the area of agricultural diversification, including horticulture, fruit growing and floriculture, grew around 40 percent," said Vasco Cordeiro.
The President of the Government spoke after visiting the horticultural farm of young farmer Cláudia Ledo, an overall investment of 500 thousand Euros supported by ProRural+. After the completion of this investment, it will have a production area of about 30,000 m2 in hydroponic system.
This is a good example of the partnership between entrepreneurship and public support provided to producers, allowing them to generate more added value, more wealth and more jobs in this area.
"But we want more. We are working on three measures that are particularly important to reinforce this growth pace and the promotion of agricultural diversification," said Vasco Cordeiro.
In this regard, he added that the Government will launch next year a new programme to support the modernisation of agriculture - PROAMAF +, which is intended to finance investment projects up to the amount of 10 thousand Euros.
Additionally, the Support Programme for the Training of Young Farmers - FORJAGRI will be created to strengthen the technical and management qualification of entrepreneurs in this area so that they may boost income of their activity and generate more added value.
Also, in 2019, the Regional Government will move forward with the i9AGRI programme to promote and co-finance the introduction of innovative practices on regional farms.
"The Regional Government is working on these three measures, thus providing another response to the growth in the use of public support measures, value generation, income boost and employment creation in the sector," said the President of the Government.
Following the visit to this farm, Vasco Cordeiro also stressed that this commitment to increase regional agricultural production serves the purpose of simultaneously reducing imports of products and increasing the export capacity of the Azores.
"There are various examples of this capacity across all islands. We are on the right track, but there is still work to do," concluded the President of the Government.