The PS Parliamentary Group will present, at the Legislative Assembly, a proposal for the creation of an agricultural reserve in Madeira.
The intention was advanced today by deputy Sílvia Silva, following a visit to the Madeira Wine Company,’ in the Madeira Free Trade Zone, at which time the parliamentarian explained that the creation of the reserve – in this case also for the vineyard – aims to “stop the decline of agricultural activity in the region and, at the same time, help combat the depopulation of rural areas, allowing the construction, in these plots, of farmhouses.”
He also mentioned that “Madeira Wine is currently facing several challenges, some of them conjunctural, but others resulting from real estate pressure, which has stolen land from the cultivation of vines. In just 10 years, between 2009 and 2019, Madeira lost about 400 hectares of vineyards,” he warned. According to the socialist, the loss of vineyard land and the pushing of its cultivation to less desirable and productive areas has created smaller amounts of raw materials to produce wine, a decrease in the quality of the grapes and the destruction of the landscape and Madeira’s identity, which, “deep down, is what attracts tourists who consume and promote Madeira Wine.”
Sílvia Silva noted that Madeira is, at the moment, the only region in the country that does not have an agricultural reserve, living in a transitional regime that has lasted for 15 years and that has allowed the most fertile and most productive land to be swallowed up by urban expansion.
As he pointed out, “the Regional Spatial Planning Programme itself recommends the adaptation of the agricultural reserve to Madeira, but the Regional Government has systematically ignored its recommendations, allowing the destruction of agricultural soils.”
Thus, within the scope of this proposal, the socialists want Madeira’s soil map to be updated to know where the most fertile land is and, within these, which ones maintain productive capacity, that is, which have associated infrastructures to support production, namely irrigation water, access, and other equipment. In this sequence, “the agricultural reserve should then be created, namely for vineyards, according to soil and climate conditions.”
In addition to the preservation of agricultural land, Sílvia Silva said that the PS proposal also allows the construction of farmhouses for farmers and other uses, such as agritourism, as long as the main activity on most of the farm is agriculture.
Concluding, he added:
“This is a solution that aims to avoid the decline of agriculture and the loss of agricultural land, but it will also be a solution for the construction of housing in rural areas, counteracting depopulation and without harming owners, maintaining the integrity of our typical traditional landscape.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
