The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and the Environment stated in Lagoa that the Regional Government's mission is "to provide the agricultural business fabric throughout the archipelago" with support infrastructures to agriculture, "whether they be roads or water and power supply infrastructures."
 
Luís Neto Viveiros spoke at the opening of the improvement works of Carvalho Rural Road in the village of Água de Pau. He stressed that these are the "three key pillars" for the sector that "have been consolidated during this legislative period," but, "despite what has already been done, there is still much to do."
 
In this regard, the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture and the Environment, through the Regional Directorate for Forest Resources, will conclude and start intervention covering about 34 kilometres of forest and rural roads, in addition to the planned interventions in agricultural roads under the jurisdiction of IROA (Regional Institute of Agrarian Planning).
 
The investments in rural and forest roads made by the direct administration and public works contracts will directly benefit 388 farms, 2,548 hectares of pasture and 773 hectares of forest.
 
As for the contract work for the improvement of Carvalho Rural Road, a public investment of 300 thousand Euros registered in the Regional Public Works Charter, Neto Viveiros emphasised its "special significance" because this intervention concludes the paving of all rural roads in Água de Pau.
 
On the other hand, the intervention carried out in the 1377-metre extension of this road also benefits the local population insofar as it will link the Regional Road no.1-1 (Lagoa/Vila Franca do Campo) with Junqueiras Rural Road, in addition to improving the access to 13 farms and an area of 42 hectares of pasture.
 
In his speech, the Secretary for Agriculture stressed that the work provides "better safety conditions" to the day-to-day lives of producers, "improved accessibility" and "enhanced competitiveness" through "cost reduction."
 
The works included the rehabilitation of the drainage system, the widening and paving of the road, and the landscape reintegration of embankments using 600 native plants of the Azores.