The project “Innovative practices for environmental protection phase II” has ended with its activities on 14.11.2019. After two-year realization, the activities have left behind successful influence for protection of the environment, an established cooperation between the regions Prespa in North Macedonia and Korcha in Albania and educated and motivated agro-producers and students to…
The project “Innovative practices for environmental protection phase II” financed by the European Union has ended with its activities on14.11.2019. After two-year realization, the activities have left behind successful influence for protection of the environment, an established cooperation between the regions Prespa in North Macedonia and Korcha in Albania and educated and motivated agro-producers and students to protect the environment and eat and produce healthy food.
Momentarily, the regions Prespa and Korcha are 100% covered with Agro-meteorological stations and system of informing, i.e. sending messages to the agro-producers about the appropriate time to spray the fruits. These messages that are sent to the agro-producers have helped them to reduce the sprayings for 9 sprayings less than before the functional system of informing. Meaning that there are now 14 orchard sprayings from the previous 23 sprayings annually.
In the means of environmental protection, the agrochemical laboratories in both regions were equipped and soil analyzers for field work were provided. The agro-producers accepted to analyze the soil before they start working on the land, giving them information about what they need to feed the soil with, or what it lacked. Within the realization of this project, 295 analyzes have been made, and this is already becoming a practice for the farmers.
The project is promoting new ways of soil feeding – fertigation, that was assessed as very practical and efficient. By using this machine through the irrigation – drip system, the agro-producers are saving time i.e. they are not wasting any time to feed the fruits, now all that is functioning with the system. Also, primarily they are protecting the environment, because the soil feeding now is being made only when needed, only where needed and not the whole surface and with exactly what this particular soil lacks.
This project has brought the agro-producers with new practical experiences. 22 fruit producers from both regions have visited fruits rich regions throughout Europe transferring experience with professionals, and also meetings with fruit producers from these regions. The impressions and the new acquired information are from the modern orchards visited in Slovakia and Hungary.
The youth were included in order to make the environmental protection a part of their everyday practices. The children involved in the project have built eco gardens, in which they organized a system of their own healthy food production. They also had their own eco patrols for environmental protection, and attended at a series of lectures on environmental protection. What was especially interesting for the students were the organized Eco quizzes. Teams of 3 students competed with each other in each of the schools. And the winners took part in a joint Eco Quiz held at the Goce Delchev elementary school in Resen.
More than 30,000 citizens across the cross-border area benefited from the project activities designed to improve the environment, reducing the use of fertilizers that are considered one of the main factors for pollution. In addition to the project participants, at least 200 farmers working around the Prespa Lake basin and the Korcha region were directly covered by the project activities in the sector of sustainable agriculture.
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