Within the framework of its 2023 Action Plan, Ailimpo is carrying out a series of actions to improve transparency in the citrus plant material sector to avoid the problems that the lack of truthful and verified information can cause.
Varietal improvement is one of the most important advances in agricultural activity and innovation in this area is fundamental for the development of Spain's citrus sector. The new varieties must ensure that they are better than the varieties that are currently grown in different aspects such as having a better adaptation to climate change, greater resistance to pests and diseases, lower water needs, better productivity, fruit quality, and differential characteristics, among others.
The variety that producers choose to plant conditions them throughout the entire useful life of a new plantation. Sometimes, not knowing the behavior of a variety in real production conditions has caused very important economic damages derived from the payment of royalties, the expenses for uprooting and planting crops, as well as the losses due to the volumes of fruit that producers don't harvest until the crops complete entry into production.
In order for a citrus variety to be marketed in Spain, it must be registered in the Register of Commercial Varieties, and for it to be admitted to said register, it must undergo a technical examination to verify that it is a different, homogeneous, and stable variety. Incredible as it may seem, the agronomic characteristics (productivity, production regularity, etc.) or quality of the fruit are not valued.
Therefore, AILIMPO is promoting measures to improve information on new lemon and grapefruit varieties through the following initiatives:
Transferring this problem to the competent public administrations (CC. AA., the Ministry, and the Spanish Office of Plant Varieties) and proposing that agronomic tests be carried out.
Requesting agronomic behavior and quality information from breeders to transfer it to producers.
Monitoring the development of the EU's future regulation on the production and marketing of plant material in the Union, which will include the obligation to carry out agronomic tests of plant material as a prerequisite for the variety to be marketed.
AILIMPO will continue to undertake initiatives that contribute to the economic sustainability of all the links in the lemon and grapefruit sector in Spain, starting with producers.
Source: interempresas.net