Professionals involved in Manabita agro understand the unfortunate municipal intention of Portovejense to achieve a partial transfer of the land on which the experimental station Iniap works, established in 1962 in response to devastating climatic phenomena in the fertile province. The purpose was to create a center for the production of highly productive technologies and varieties typical of the environment, but with such versatility that they can be adapted to other regions with similar ecological characteristics, while the scientific contribution is unquestionable in the development of crops such as cotton, cocoa, coffee, legumes, corn, plantain, cassava, sweet potatoes and fruit trees, the basis for the economy and supporting the population.
This strange claim contradicts the clear constitutional and legal provisions that emphasize the priority of permanent food security and sovereignty in Article 281, Number 8 of the Constitution, and in laws such as Land and agro-biodiversity and state obligations, turned into hackneyed phrases, suppressed and disrespected because agriculture marginalized from political and governmental concerns. According to a note dated September 28, 2021, the Portoviejo GAD is interested in an area of 20.5 hectares of research unit where the CIAL agro-industrial complex would be installed, which is still being studied, promoting efforts until the final decision by the Central Management Board of Iniap.
It is significant, to say it respectfully and simply, that with so much land in the geography of the province, it is repeated in the fragmentation of the surface conditioned for the work of agricultural experiments that require specific characteristics, high fertility, healthy due to its microbial wealth, a level whose cost is incalculable, which would contribute to the displacement of rural areas to make way for urban programs that end in productive sealing, a fact that is considered enemy number one in the food supply and strongly questioned by the FAO. If realized, the experiments, the nurseries, the germplasm banks, the teaching classrooms will be dismantled, in favor of plans that will end up being demagogic, as similar attempts have been before, causing the frustration of the Manabites.
It is necessary that farmers, their unions and universities connected to the field represent the front of defense of heritage assets institute founded to promote the progress of agricultural science and technology, to stop the attacks on its work, to restore its damaged autonomy, removing from its path the stubborn interests related to the bad politics that rule the country.
There are doubts that behind this nonsense would be the will of land traders who are waiting for division for private industrial exploitation without immediate agricultural benefit, while the march of a representative test core of an ecological system unparalleled on the planet would be slowed down. We trust that the senior ministerial leadership will prevent this mess from being brought to perfection, anticipating the reaction of the Manabita farmers that will be keenly felt. (OR)
Source: Eluniverso
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
