RURAL GROUP, 28th of April, 2011

The rural group dedicated the second day of field work to diverse rural activities. Our first stop was banana plantations near the city of Vecindario. This settlement was created due to nearby banana plantations and indicates the importance of banana in the 19^th century. Secondly, we visited an agricultural cooperative in the municipality of Santa Lucia. It is a good example of marketed-oriented cooperative which is selling their variety of crops (peppers, watermelons, melons…) to supermarket Mercadona. They employ 14 workers, mainly foreigners, and are rentable only because of subventions.

Our next stop was the Institute for Agriculture investigation which has been founded recently. Their main subject of investigation is tomato. This centre has several researchers which are working under the contract. This institute deals with several projects. They are trying to find the best conditions in which to grow tomato. Moreover, parts of the fields are dedicated to ecological farming. One of the most important activities of this Institute is also the preservation of biodiversity. Basically, they are collecting and preserving seeds of traditional plants from local farmers from all over the island.