The Balearic Islands Agricultural and Fisheries Improvement Services (SEMILLA), a body attached to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, has changed its name. From now on it will be called the Institute for Agri-Food and Fisheries Research and Training (IRFAP). The aim of the change of name is to definitively consolidate the improvement of agri-food and fisheries knowledge in the Balearic Islands in a single entity. The change has already been published in the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands (BOIB).
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SEMILLA was created in 2013 as a public business entity providing activities related to the agricultural and fisheries sector and all those entrusted to it by the competent ministry. These are tasks that it will continue to carry out, but also with a clear commitment to improving knowledge. According to the manager of IRFAP, Georgina Brunet, “we want to develop one of the priority objectives of the Balearic Islands’ agricultural policy, which is to promote research and development, innovation, digitalisation, experimentation and knowledge transfer programmes in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and food to contribute to modernising and boosting the competitiveness of the primary sector in the current context of climate change”. “It is important to develop the Balearic Strategy for the Improvement of Agricultural Knowledge with the knowledge of the reform of the new common agricultural policy, which introduces very profound changes in the way its instruments have been designed,” he stressed.
The IRFAP will work on programmes related to plant production, livestock production and fisheries production, as well as on strategic cross-cutting programmes related to improving efficiency in the use of water and boosting the competitiveness of agricultural and fisheries enterprises and their digitalisation.
The IRFAP’s functions will also include the establishment of collaboration agreements with other public bodies or institutions operating in the field of research and technological development, training and advice for groups, companies, cooperatives and other agents in the agricultural, fishing and food sectors.
Examples of experimentation
Some of the projects that IRFAP is working on are the recovery and characterisation of native varieties, the evaluation of the agronomic behaviour of varieties of almond trees, carob trees, forage leguminous species and cereals in different water conditions, the implementation of sensors to monitor crops, the study of the calculation of the carbon balance of the main fruit and vegetable productions, the conservation and genetic improvement of native breeds, and the morphogenetic characterisation of the bee population of the Balearic Islands, among others.