Miguel Ángel Parra, representing the industrial sector, has been elected as the new President of AILIMPO for the next two years. He will be assisted in his duties by Domingo Arce (Vice-President), Francisco Marín (Secretary) and David Jiménez (Treasurer), along with the other members of the management board representing the various organisations that comprise the interprofessional association.
Miguel Ángel Parra, an industrialist and agricultural farmer, played a key role in the establishment and launch of the Lemon and Grapefruit Interprofessional Association in 1998 and has now taken over as President with the challenge of consolidating the current activities of AILIMPO and lobbying in the interest of all agents in the sector's economic chains: producers, cooperatives, exporters and processors.
The new President will continue with the activities and projects undertaken since 2015 during the tenure of Domingo Arce, who will continue to play a pivotal role as Vice President. The cornerstones of the sector roadmap are the further strengthening of the lemon and grapefruit industry as a sustainable sector, the approval by the Agriculture Ministry of the rule extensions on the use of the approved standard contract and the census of farms and operators, plant health protection against new pests and the creation within the Common Agricultural Policy of new self-regulation tools through the interprofessional associations. These pillars will be pivotal in maintaining the profitability and differentiation of the Spanish lemon and grapefruit in the context of a sharp rise in global production over the coming years.
Sustainability as a future driver of innovation forms part of the vision of the sector fostered by AILIMPO. To contribute to this significant challenge, the LEMON CERT project proposes a working system based on the GlobalGAP and GRASP certifications for the approval of farms. Through this project AILIMPO is seeking to identify responsible and committed lemon and grapefruit producers with a long-term approach which will apply the production criteria of these certifications to achieve better quality, more efficient and profitable production at a lower cost.
Protection against the entry and spread of new pests is another pillar, and there is a need to inform the pertinent national and European authorities and to provide the appropriate information to producers to rapidly detect such pests and eradicate them immediately.
The priorities of the roadmap of the new President and management team of AILIMPO are to maintain and ramp up the sector's dynamism, to strengthen the global leadership of the Spanish lemon and grapefruit, to extend the work of AILIMPO in public and private forums nationally and internationally and to promote a sector that generates more than 17,000 direct stable jobs with an annual business volume of €710 million.
For more information:
Ailimpo
Tel: +34 968 2166 19