The Canary Islands Parliament will urge the allocation of PSOEI aid to the cultivation of traditional varieties of Lanzarote

The Parliament of the Canary Islands has unanimously approved a proposal from the Sí Podemos Canarias Parliamentary Group to urge the regional government to "study and allocate Posei aid to encourage the cultivation of traditional varieties of the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura", such as lentils, chickpeas, peas, onions, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, melons, watermelons, barley and millet, as well as "achieve quality seals recognized at European level that differentiate our traditional crop varieties and guarantee consumers their origin and artisanal production".

According to the spokesperson in the area of Agriculture, Francisco Déniz, these products that survive on the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, "given their high quality, were impregnated in the collective memory of the Canarian people, as they crossed the island borders and are still demanded and longed for".

However, he stated that "it is insulting that some companies use the slogan 'Tipo Lanzarote' to advertise their lentils or the name of Fuerteventura to promote their chickpeas, in both cases associating it with two products that are neither ours, nor from Lanzarote or Fuerteventura, and, in addition, it is detrimental to our traditional products".

Therefore, he considers that "it is urgent to rescue, dignify and put at the service of the economy of the farmers these unique varieties that are currently demanded by consumers".

For this, Sí Podemos Canarias considers it necessary to "implement policies in this regard, both in relation to the creation of quality seals recognized at European level such as designations of origin, the optimal conservation of these varieties and their inclusion in aid programs for those farmers who keep them in cultivation on a small scale".

The initiative defended by Déniz and supported by the Parliament includes that the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries "urgently develop those studies that allow characterizing the traditional crop varieties of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and knowing the reality of them as well as addressing strategies to promote their cultivation, commercialization and consumption".

Likewise, it urges to guarantee "the conservation and reproduction of the agricultural varieties traditionally present in the fields of both islands, ensuring farmers the availability of reproduction material so that it is possible, in the future, to increase the area of cultivation destined to these traditional varieties and the decrease of the one destined to the subsidized cultivation of foreign varieties".

"We believe that it is time to act to maintain in use traditional varieties associated with agricultural landscapes of undoubted value, artisanal production techniques and nutritional and organoleptic characteristics already recognized in some cases, but still to be studied in many others," he concluded.