The Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente park in San Bartolomé hosts the sixth edition of the Agrocanarias Fair from this Friday, an event that brings local products closer to urban environments and promotes the gastronomic potential of the archipelago.
Visitors will have three days of tastings of the islands' products and gastronomy, as well as live music, a children's area, presentations and product training including tastings and workshops of Canarian products. In addition, a market has been set up to sell the products awarded in the Agrocanarias Awards, along with other agri-food products made in the archipelago.
The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, together with the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Alicia Vanoostende; the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas; the President of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Dolores Corujo; the CEO of GMR, Pablo Zurita, and the director of the ICCA, Basilio Pérez, visited the exhibition today, which has 14 business exhibitors and 12 gastronomic exhibitors, in addition to the 42 suppliers participating in the market.
President Torres highlighted the importance of this sixth edition of Agrocanarias and the fact that the fair is rotating through the different islands. In his opinion, this is a “key event because what we are doing is defending sustainability, not only economic, social and environmental, but also food sustainability, linked to kilometer 0 and to consuming Canarian products that come directly from the field and are sold here.” He stressed that this is betting on decarbonization by avoiding almost all transport before the product reaches the table.
Planas praises Lanzarote's wine and cheese
For his part, Minister Planas pointed out that this fair “very well reflects the diversity and breadth of agricultural, livestock and fisheries production in this community. In fact, there are 20 quality marks in the Canary Islands, 11 relating to wines, eight to food and one spirit drink. As a whole, they are the best demonstration that in the islands there are excellent agri-food products, and not only the best known of all: the banana.”
In this line, he also highlighted the tomato, the potato, the subtropical products and “the special role played by wines, something that Lanzarote exemplifies well, as well as goat's milk cheeses.” In his opinion, “the fact that the Canary Islands has a strong sector with farmers and ranchers who carry out their work in a serious and honest way is very good news and we fully support this from the Government of Spain, both with the Posei and with the national promotion of the products, because it is very important that they are known and exported to other places. This is the reason for my presence at this fair.”
For her part, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote considers the presence of the minister at the fair and on the island, which hosts this fair for the first time, to be very relevant. Corujo believes that this type of exhibition is very important and that there is a commitment to local products, highlighting the support they are receiving from the central and Canarian governments to a sector that has had a very bad time with the various crises of recent years. “Never before has so much been invested in these subsectors, nor has a strategic sector such as the primary sector been protected, both in the islands and in Lanzarote.”
The exhibition is organized by the public company Gestión del Medio Rural de Canarias (GMR), attached to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the regional government, and has the participation of the Canarian Institute of Agri-Food Quality (ICCA) and the collaboration of the City Council of San Bartolomé. From today until this Sunday (May 7), the fair will boost the municipality with activities related to the agri-food sector of the islands.
