The agricultural cooperative Guía de Isora acknowledges the work carried out by the Deputy Ministry of agriculture.

ALONSO BROOK EXCITED THANKED THE RECOGNITION AND HIGHLIGHTED THE WORK CARRIED OUT BY HIS DEPARTMENT.

In a ceremony presided over by the Minister of agriculture, Domingo Berriel, and held at the headquarters of the cooperative in Guia de Isora, Tenerife, farmers paid tribute to the head of Department, Alonso Brook, for his career and work at the head of this Department and his defence of the interests of the producers of tomatoes from the Islands.

The President of the cooperative, Francisco Mesa, He appreciated the support expressed by the Department of agriculture to this culture through the Plan of restructuring of the Sector of the tomato of export of Canary Islands.

Highlighted the efforts made by the Deputy Minister and his team as promoters of this initiative which aims to promote the competitiveness of the sector through the transformation of the productive structures in other more modern that allow the use of new techniques of cultivation, as the lift or the climate control in greenhouses in order to obtain higher yields at best cost per unit of product.

Alonso Arroyo thanked excited this recognition and highlighted the work done by his Department, “constituted by qualified professionals, with great dedication, and working for the benefit of the sector”.

It also stressed the importance of promoting actions of modernization and improvement of infrastructure and production systems on the Islands through mechanisms such as the programme of Rural development of the Canary Islands (PDR) 2007-2013- It allocates 3.000.000 euros to promote the modernization of infrastructures- with the aim of increasing productivity, ensure that the tomato crop remains profitable, and guarantee their survival in the future.

The Plan of restructuring of the Sector of the tomato of export of Canary Islands, be drafted following the guidelines of the strategy for the sector's export of Canary Islands tomato and it was referred to the European Commission along with amendments to the programme of options specific to the remote and insular nature of the Canary Islands (POSEI) for 2010- among them were major improvements for agriculture in the Islands as the introduction of the aid to producers of tomato directed towards the foreign market- whose approval was conditioned to the submission of the restructuring Plan. Both documents were approved by Commission decision of 25 March of 2010.

This Plan has allowed that the tomato sector may not only avail himself of planned production of export subsidies in the modification of the POSEI- funded by value of 27 million euros in 2010, quantity decreasing up to the 7,7 million euros in 2014 and subsequent years- but also the lines of investment support for the modernisation of its productive infrastructure.

During the meeting, attendees visited the facilities of this agricultural cooperative that began over forty years ago focused on the production and packaging of tomatoes and that now covers other crops like bananas, papaya and vegetables.

COAGISORA has an average of 160 workers, In addition to other 300 temporary employees in the harvest of tomatoes and represents around the 20 % export of tomatoes from Tenerife. At this time they have managed to adapt to the demands of the market, diversifying its production in loose tomatoes, in corsages and ecological.