The councilors of the Island Council of Lanzarote, Óscar Noda and Daysi Villalba, have once again lamented Oswaldo Betancort's "lack of political will and short-sightedness to approve two motions aimed at improving the primary sector."
On the one hand, a motion that proposes that the First Island Institution carry out the necessary steps with the Government of the Canary Islands to allow the implementation in Lanzarote of an agricultural training school to train and professionalize the sector, thus preparing the generational change, and on the other hand, the application of the Island Forage Plan claimed by "many voices in the sector as a starting point for the development of eco-livestock farming."
For his part, Óscar Noda, states that “he has clearly argued the rejection of the initiatives by saying that they are proposals that should have been agreed upon with him first, since, according to him, he is already working on them, and that approving them would imply a lack of respect towards the sector and towards the work that he is supposedly carrying out, but what is truly a lack of respect is that Lanzarote is suffering a “desertification” of its countryside due to generational abandonment and the president rejects the initiative because we have presented it without taking into account his opinion, as if we had to ask him for permission to present improvements. It is something “unheard of”, adds Óscar Noda.
The councilor and mayor of Yaiza regrets that “similar initiatives, which are already being developed in Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Palma, and which have a great effect on the population dedicated to the countryside and on the primary sector that struggles to remain alive and to generate new business opportunities among our young and not so young people, are not applied here without compelling reasons.”
These initiatives, says Óscar Noda, “were agreed upon with a large part of the sector and were included in the last Uga Livestock Show where several experts in the field discussed the pressing needs of the primary sector, but it is logical that the president does not know them because he did not even attend the Show's call, even though he is the head councilor of the Cabildo of the Primary Sector, which demonstrates Oswaldo Betancort's lack of interest in this matter.”