Council cedes farmable portion of Ca Ses Ferreres for use in project by farmers cooperative

This morning, Formentera Council president Jaume Ferrer and agriculture, livestock and fishing councillor Sant Juan received a visit from Jaume Escandell, president of the Formentera farmers' cooperative, and the group's recently-appointed director, Carles Marí.

The encounter served to acquaint the new chief of the cooperative with the Council heads and an array of issues on which the administration and the farmers' cooperative have worked in recent months. Of the two entities' jointly-run projects are the construction of an industrial space for the farmers' cooperative – whose completion is now a scant four months away – and the impending start of the untilled land use project known as fons de terres.

As the meeting drew to a close, President Ferrer declared: “We are 100% sure of this project and hope to serve an example for any landowners who have untilled terrain. This is the sort of land that the Cooperative is proposing to labour and put to use”. The FiC president indicated that the terrain being ceded is the farmable portion of Ca Ses Ferreres, a plot of land that until recently had been up for sale. The process ultimately fell through. The Ca Ses Ferreres lot measures 10,000 square metres.

Application for farmable portion of Can Marroig

Ferrer also announced that in the plenary session to be celebrated next Thursday, the administration would propose asking the Govern Balear to cede the farmable portion of the Can Marroig lot for use by the fons de terres project. “This is about augmenting quantity in order to simultaneously increase the productivity of the land and natural beauty”.

Santi Juan, councillor of agriculture, took the opportunity to highlight “the pivotal role of Carles Marí in the success of the cooperative and in the renewal of Formentera's countryside”. After the meeting, President Ferrer and Councillor Juan joined the heads of the farmers' cooperative in a visit to their recently-adapted space at the Centre Gabrielet in Sant Francesc Xavier.

Jaume Escandell proferred: “Members of the cooperative and anyone else interested in the fons de terres project can visit the Centre Gabrielet mornings from 2 March [until remodel work on the industrial space has been completed] where the Council has granted the group use of an office space for its administrative work”.

He also said that, for purposes of fons de terres, the cooperative "takes into consideration any plot with more than 5,000 square metres of non-irrigated and 1,000 square metres of irrigated terrain".

Newly-appointed director Carles Marí expressed gratitude “for the opportunity to participate in the cooperative's work. The group stands to give local agriculture a serious edge. Right now, the biggest mark on our radar screen is the untilled land use project. But the cooperative oversees a variety of other important work – including administering government assistance to its members – and the group is ready to go to bat on any of the other issues that its member base calls up”.