The Mayor of Dénia, Vicent Grimalt, the Councilor for Commerce and Employment Policies, Sandra GertrudixAnd the Councilor for Finance, Paco Roselló, have presented today, Wednesday March 22, at a press conference the adaptation project of two municipally owned parcels for their transformation into an experimental agricultural park.
The agricultural lands of 35.000 m2 are located in the greenway; They are two plots -one of 8.000 m 2 and another of 27.000 m 2 - that want to dedicate themselves to education and dissemination linked to the gastronomic offer of Dénia as a creative city of Unesco and university headquarters of the culinary degree of the University of Alicante.
The consistory will put out to tender a contract for technical assistance for agricultural conditioning, with its sights set on the future establishment of an experimental agricultural park, where the idea, according to Roselló, is to build "a large warehouse that will enable it to be the Dénia's first land market" and as a training space, where the products of the land would be sold, in addition to the crops of local producers. The mayor has highlighted the enthusiasm for "this new project to promote local products."
For her part, Gertrudix explained the training aspect of the project; The space is expected to function as a place dedicated to agricultural training and the food industry for students, all "focused on employment", in the words of the mayor. The mayor and councilor for Tourism highlighted the link between this agricultural initiative and the 'Bancalet' project and the council's commitment to local gastronomy that values the countryside and regional products.
Grimalt has added that, apart from selling the crops, these could be used to supply the municipal nursing home and school canteens, as is done in projects that are being studied to develop the experimental agricultural field in Dénia. The project seeks with "the cultivation of native species and the recovery of others that are practically no longer used", as Grimalt comments, "to continue with the project that began in the Riurau de Jesús Pobre Market, giving it continuity in Denia ”. On the other hand, he wanted to clarify that the fields "are not urban gardens like those of Torrecremada", so they will not have the same function.
Grimalt explained that the almost 8.600 euros of the grant from the European Next Generation funds for Commerce within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience plan, managed by the Secretary of State for Commerce as "Aid to support markets, commercial urban areas, non-sedentary trade and short marketing channels”, will serve to cover the cost of technical assistance for the study of agricultural land and its conditioning; later, in a period that the mayor estimates "of a couple of years", the land will be prepared for the activity and closed. Regarding the previous conditions of the terraces, he has highlighted that they already have their own well, which was used to irrigate the orange crops.
The Via Verde of Denia, represents a close-by traffic free escape from the city/town that is enjoyed by many cyclists, walkers, runners and nature observers. I like the idea of an experimental agricultural park though this may not be the best area for this purpose as it will invite vehicular traffic in maintaining warehouses to the via verde ruining the joys of this traffic free existence.