Spanish Minister for Agriculture visits Axarquia fruit facility

ISABEL GARCIA TEJERINA, the Spanish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, visited Velez-Malaga on Tuesday (October 13) and offered her support to local farmers fighting for irrigation solutions.

The minister came to visit the headquarters of Trops, Andalucia’s largest tropical fruit company, in El Trapiche.

Trops, manager Enrique Colilles explained, supplies 60 per cent of the national demand for tropical produce, mainly avocados and mangos, and employment and the local economy in the Axarquia area rely strongly on agriculture, meaning the irrigation problem is one of its main worries.

Although she explained that the responsibility to create infrastructure to transfer water within the region lies with the Junta de Andalucia regional government, Garcia Tejerina offered her ministry’s support on the matter.

After visiting Trops, the minister took part in a ceremony also attended by Malaga Provincial Council head Elias Bendodo, government delegate for Malaga Miguel Briones and local council representatives to lay the first stone at the site of works to improve accesses to the Costa del Sol-Axarquia Techno-alimentary Park in El Trapiche.