Opportunities in the Dominican Republic

WORLD FARMING

FAD-funded project to create opportunities of employment and economic inclusion for rural youth in the Dominican Republic

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of the Dominican Republic signed a financing agreement yesterday that will support the implementation of the Productive Inclusion and Resilience of Poor Rural Youth Project (PRORURAL Joven). This rural development operation aims to improve opportunities for rural youth to access jobs and establish businesses, and to build resilience among them and their families to climate, social and economic shocks and stresses.

With a total investment of US$ 33.38 million, PRORURAL Joven will benefit around 27,000 households. The project is expected to improve opportunities for 18,600 young people (50 per cent women) to gain fruitful occupations (either by accessing jobs or as entrepreneurs) and to improve the resilience of 14,800 households with young members.

“The Dominican Republic’s economic performance and the Government’s social inclusion programmes have resulted in a significant reduction of the country’s poverty levels over the last few years. However, inequalities persist, with rural youth and women bearing the brunt. This project seeks to empower rural youth to be agents of change and to thrive through the employment and entrepreneurship opportunities they build in rural areas” said IFAD’s Country Director for the Dominican Republic, Maija Peltola.

Rural young people in the Dominican Republic face significant vulnerabilities. Their jobs tend to be part-time and poorly remunerated. They frequently cope with low levels of human capital, education and job training; scarce participation in decision-making processes; very limited access to land and financial services; negative perceptions about agricultural activities; and limited access to alternative economic activities or high-quality employment.

To counter these barriers, the project will heavily invest in building rural youth life and professional skills, relying on public-private partnerships.

Alongside these investments, the project will advocate for public policies that address the root causes of the challenges faced by rural youth. Training will be complemented with financial support to two types of business plans: group plans, focused on agricultural and livestock production and value addition initiatives, and micro-business plans, not necessarily related to agriculture. Innovation will be encouraged through technological initiatives that foster inclusion of the most vulnerable.

NGO welcomes Dutch plan for 0% VAT on fruit and vegetables

Food awareness organisation ProVeg International has welcomed plans by the Dutch Government to reduce the VAT rate on fruit and vegetables to zero as part of efforts to encourage healthy eating.

“We really welcome the government plans to lower the VAT on fruit and vegetables which we believe will support a shift to healthier, plant-based diets,” Pablo Moleman, Manager Food Industry and Foodservice of ProVeg Netherlands, said.

“Plant-based diets are shown to have a much lower impact on the environment than diets based on animal foods, so a zero VAT rate will also contribute towards putting the brake on climate change,” Moleman added.

Until recently, the EU applied a minimum VAT rate to this category of 5% so any change would have required consultation with the European Commission.

However, EU finance ministers have since agreed to offer Member States the option to set the rate at 0%, under EU Directive No. 2022/542, which

was published in the EU’s Official Journal on 6 April 2022.

Last month in Germany, the Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir, called for the scrapping of VAT on fruit and vegetables to combat rising food prices as well as supporting healthy diets.

“We urge all EU Member States to consider reducing VAT on fruit and vegetables to support the booming plantbased sector. And we encourage them to include plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy as well,” Moleman said.

Farm to Fork

The EU’s Farm to Fork strategy already encourages the use of VAT rates to act as an incentive to support organic fruit and vegetables.

ProVeg is actively campaigning to prevent the watering down of the strategy in the face of food security concerns triggered by the war in Ukraine.

The European Commission has come under pressure to postpone implementation of the strategy and make more land available for farming to boost food production.

ProVeg believes this is shortsighted, urging instead that EU ministers should encourage the shift to a plant-based diet and reduce the amount of grains poured into animal feed.

A positive for the environment and for the grower: the benefits of introducing herbaceous crops among mandarin trees

A Diverfarming project study compares the environmental footprint and the economic performance of traditional mandarin monocropping as opposed to growing mandarin intercropped with herbaceous crops and the use of deficit irrigation

The transformation towards intensive agriculture has led to agricultural practices in Europe that have centred on increasing the yield and reducing costs in recent decades, and which involve a major dependence on external sources of agrochemicals and energy. These intensive monocropping systems have generated biodiversity losses, water contamination, and high rates of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as degrading the soil and reducing the ecosystem services.

Faced with this situation, the European Diverfarming project has trialled the diversification of crops throughout the European Union, seeking the best practices to combine crops and focusing on reducing inputs to find the best options to preserve the sustainability of the systems and increase the resilience of the European agricultural sector. To do so, it is also necessary to know the impacts of these practices both at environmental as well as economic level.

With the aim of knowing the environmental footprint and the economic performance of the introduction of herbaceous crops among the alleys of the mandarin trees using controlled deficit irrigation in a mandarin grove located in the Region of Murcia, a team of researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena have carried out a life-cycle assessment of the crop