According to the needs of the producer
The General Directorate of Farms of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries has been holding a series of conferences on irrigation systems in different parts of the country.
The objective is to provide producers with enough information to make decisions according to the needs of their properties, but also the possibilities they have.
“Together with the DIGEGRA Technicians, 11 workshops were given this week in different points: Colonia, Montevideo, Canelones, Melo, Fray Bentos, Salto, Constitución, Bella Unión and Rivera. They are nuclei with which we as Farm Management have links, with the organizations and with the producers, because it is necessary to always know the details of each area that make the difference when preparing proposals” express Ramiro Vacca.
From the National Farm Board with the collaboration of the OPP, Banco República and the DIGEGRA Technical Team, work was done based on three fundamental axes. “There is a first tier of producers who have to first resolve how they access water, a second tier who are producers who have the water source and who need to renew their irrigation system or install a new irrigation system and then, finally, everything that has to do with technological innovation” he detailed. “We believe that there is room to continue advancing in solutions that free up hours of work for the producer and that in turn make efficient use of water. In this process of climate change that we are experiencing and in the corresponding adaptation, it is no longer enough to just have water for the crops but to arrive at the time that the crop needs it most and with the right amount of water. For more water or less water, the potential of the crop is altered.” he remarked.
“The technology that is available today offers advantages that you always have to see later how much each one fits because there is a technology that is cutting-edge and that works, but for a certain scale of producers other things are needed” Vacca specified.
The General Directorate of the Farm, headed by Laura González, is committed to periodically having these instances of closeness with the producers. “The idea is to generate a space where the producer raises his situation and that particularity, as long as we hear it in various places, becomes something general. Sometimes they are details that when one thinks about the thing with a single glance, no matter how right it is, those types of questions pass by and it is the chance that at least we are here to see what they propose to us” held.
THREE LINES OF WORK
Ramiro Vacca announced that the new DIGEGRA Management has been working along three general lines.
“One has to do with the farming identity, with generating a link with the population related or not to the sector, which values the advantages we have, something that is often lost sight of” said. “We have most of the food that is produced in our country, which is consumed fresh, which is produced by our own population and who benefits from it. This generates a socioeconomic framework that is necessary to know in order to disseminate and improve” he pointed out.
“Another line has to do with productive development. This is what we are working on now, the issue of water, technical assistance. Today there is a lot of continuous generation of information and there is a lot of distance between a producer who accesses technical advice, someone who is trained with an objective view of the situation and that producer who ends up making or buying what he sees or what he hears.” he pointed out. “Although that has its value, knowing what your neighbor does, but technical advice mainly for the planning of the properties, beyond a crop, has an important value and is necessary when we think about the development of producers, mainly medium and small ones” said the Technical Director of DIGEGRA.
“The last line is to disseminate information to ensure that producers who receive some support can generate mechanisms to differentiate their production” express. “There we have two managements underway, one is the regional horticultural management that is expanding in the country and the idea is that they continue to advance, and the fruit management where the producers who participate there receive technical advice, different supports, but at the same time they validate a production method that when presenting it to the population guarantees that the product that is consumed was prepared according to technical standards, with technical advice, with the right products, at the right time. That is the final value that can be improved taking into account that not all “Producers can absorb the entire part of the chain. Those who can, the idea is to help them, but we also know that there are producers who have limited internal work and we must ensure that they can differentiate the product so that when it reaches the end of the chain it has more value for having been made in a certain way.” Ramiro Vacca concluded by saying.
