- The Biodiversity Foundation has resolved the call for grants for environmental restoration and improvement in agriculture.
- The beneficiaries are 11 strategic and innovative projects, led by agricultural sector organizations, research organizations, municipalities and private non-profit organizations.
- These projects represent an unprecedented opportunity to promote the restoration of the natural balance of the area in a way that is compatible with the sustainability of agricultural activity.
January 2, 2023- January 2, 2023- January 2, 2023- January 2, 2023- January 2, 2023 The Fundación Biodiversidad del Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO), in collaboration with the Technical Office for the Mar Menor, has resolved the call for grants for environmental restoration and improvement in agriculture to contribute to the recovery of the biological integrity of Mar Menor. This first call for proposals fulfills the commitment to reduce impacts at source, which is included in line 2.4 of the Framework of Priority Actions to recover the Mar Menor (MAPMM).
A total of 11 strategic and innovative projects have been selected to advance in different aspects of the agroecological transition, which will receive 16.2 million euros in funding, representing 90% of the cost of the projects.
The call is based on the premise that the agroecological transition requires the involvement of all social actors, with farmers as a fundamental part of the solution. Therefore, the beneficiaries of these projects include organizations representing key sectors, such as entities in the agricultural sector, universities and other research bodies, municipalities and private non-profit entities.
The projects will address issues such as the implementation of good agricultural practices that improve soil and water management and the reduction of pollutants, including the promotion of organic and regenerative agriculture and agroecology. Actions will also be carried out to develop new techniques and protocols to reduce the contribution of nitrates and the use of biosolutions in crop fertilization, as well as the implementation of solutions based on nature, such as the renaturalization of spaces with a water retention and green filtering function, to prevent erosion and flooding problems.
Thus, thanks to this call for aid, work will be carried out with the agricultural sector in the development of biofertilization treatments with products of plant origin, taking advantage of crop residues or dairy products from the cheese industry. Crops will also be converted to rainfed crops, demonstrating their added value, and demonstrative agroecological models will be developed, among other practices. In addition, plant barriers or hedges will be used in agricultural plots, demonstrating their contribution to erosion reduction or other nature-based solutions, such as a green filter consisting of barley cultivation.
The actions of these projects will cover more than 1,000 hectares of direct intervention on the Mar Menor watershed with implementation of actions at the plot level. The transfer of results and lessons learned to farmers has also been given importance and, according to the projects, it is estimated that the advisory and transfer actions will reach 30,000 hectares.
STRATEGIC VALUE
With all this, ambitious results are expected to be obtained in aspects such as the reduction of agrochemical and organic fertilizer inputs, the reduction of irrigation returns and erosive processes, the increase in soil quality, the reduction in the demand for water resources and the improvement of the environment and general biodiversity in the agricultural area of the Mar Menor watershed.
Therefore, these are initiatives of great strategic value that start from the local stakeholders involved and pursue objectives aligned with the European Green Pact and, specifically, with the Farm to Fork Strategy and the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030.
From the beginning, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) and representatives of the agricultural sector have collaborated and participated in the design of the subsidies.
The projects selected in this initiative, which responds to the commitment of MITECO officials with representatives of the primary sector, will begin to be implemented in January 2024 and will last for three years, until December 2026.
