Belver de Cinca.-The ornithological reserve of Finca San Miguel (Belver de Cinca), a natural environment declared a Special Protection Area for Birds (ZEPA), will improve the integration between the profitability of irrigated crops and the protection of the ecosystem thanks to an initiative developed by SEO/Birdlife and Farms San Miguel. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has allocated 553,000 euros to this project, within a line of aid framed in the Strategic Plan of the CAP in Spain (PEPAC).

Subdelegate José Carlos Campo visited this Friday the farm and the surroundings of the Embalse del Pas together with Luis Tirado, biologist and territorial delegate of SEO/Birdlife, Manel Raventós, owner of the farm, and Pilar Errea, managing director of CITA and FITA, to know a project that aims to transform the current model of irrigated agriculture in Spain towards a more sustainable and profitable one.

In the field, the project translates into the implementation of less aggressive agroecological practices with soils, and therefore more favorable to biodiversity: planting of boundaries and planting of bushes as a refuge for fauna, implantation of plant covers for soil improvement, more efficient management of phytosanitary… Measures that will be accompanied by a census of birds, insects and bats and an economic evaluation.

The Agrarian Network of Sustainable Crops RACS project is coordinated by SEO/BirdLife and has as partners the companies Farms San Miguel SLU (Aragón), Finca San Vicenç SL (Catalonia) and the technological centers FITA (Foundation of Innovation and Agri-food Transfer of the Government of Aragón), CITA (Center of Research and Agri-food Technology of Aragón) and the University of Zaragoza.

For the Government’s deputy delegate, “projects like this, which bring together institutions, entities and companies, are the ones that land the great European policies in the territory and demonstrate that development and respect for nature can be combined”. Campo highlighted “the commitment of the Raventós family to the environment” and how its collaboration with SEO/Birdlife has made the Embalse del Pas “a point of reference for ornithology fans throughout Europe”.

Finca San Miguel is one of the thirteen SEO/BirdLife Ornithological Reserves in Spain. Located in Belver de Cinca, this farm owned by the Raventós family is made up of a mosaic of fields of cultivation that surround a wet area declared Special Protection Area for Birds (ZEPA). In total, it hosts more than 120 species of birds, some of them classified as endangered species at both regional and national levels.