News & Events

(Updated, 21/3/2022) The sustainability team of the InnovPlantProtect, InPP Greeners, will plant 19 almond trees with students from the Alcáçova Primary School, The World Tree Day 2022 event, which was scheduled to take place today, has had to be postponed due to weather conditions. The event, scheduled for today, March 21, had to be postponed due to weather conditions and will be held on a new date to be announced.

The trees will be donated by Bolschare and the initiative has the support of Elvas City Council, In addition to the land, the company also provides the necessary planting material and technical support staff. The event will be attended by Councillor Hermenegildo Rodrigues.

At 9.30 a.m., a total of 57 pupils from three classes in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of the Alcáçova Primary School, part of the Elvas School Group 1, will join InnovPlantProtect (InPP) volunteers and members of the Municipality on the ground to plant the almond trees in the area surrounding the so-called “Amoreira arches” in Rossio de São Francisco.

With this action, InPP Greeners want to make elementary school pupils aware of the importance of trees for life. The almond trees were chosen because not only are they part of the work being carried out by InPP, but they are also of great economic interest to the region and are very beautiful landscape trees.

Bolschare is a family-run company based in Elvas that specializes in planting various crops.

The InPP Greeners are InnovPlantProtect's (InPP) sustainability team, created at the end of 2021 to share knowledge and good practices that lead to the creation of more sustainable laboratories and institutions, as well as promoting the adoption of more sustainable behaviors by all citizens.

The president of Elvas City Council (CME), José Rondão Almeida, visited today for the first time the facilities of the InnovPlantProtect (InPP), at the Elvense center of the INIAV - National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research. The mayor was accompanied by InPP's executive director, Pedro Fevereiro, and the director of INIAV's Elvas Center, Benvindo Maçãs.

The purpose of the visit was to introduce the mayor to the collaborative laboratory (CoLAB), at a time when the team is moving into the definitive premises, whose construction work is almost finished. Rondão Almeida considered the new space “very functional” and wanted to find out about the people who work at the InPP: how many there are, where they come from and what roles they play.

InnovPlantProtect has a total of 39 members, 33 researchers and 6 administrative staff, from Elvas, various other parts of Portugal and abroad, from countries such as Guatemala, India, Iran, Italy and Brazil, among others.

The president of the CME, which is a founding member of the InPP, expressed his satisfaction with what he had seen and what it could represent in terms of contributing to the development of the Alentejo, considering the CoLAB “a good challenge” that the local authority has embraced together with INIAV and other institutions.

Elvas, March 16, 2022

Images: CMElvas

The most unprotected and fragile populations, those who have the most difficulty accessing food, are the ones who will feel the impact of the potential food crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine the most, Pedro Fevereiro said today on the morning program of the Ukrainian Television. Antena 1, to which he was invited.

In a live interview with journalist Eduarda Maio, the executive director of InnovPlantProtect (InPP) also expressed concern about the transformation of agriculture in Europe towards a more sustainable model. Although the decisions have already been made, Pedro Fevereiro believes that there will be an impact when they are implemented, not only from an environmental point of view, but also from a social and economic one.

The director of the InPP argued that the current crisis, coupled with the previous one caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, is very worrying and that we are “forgetting other issues that are fundamental”, such as efforts to mitigate climate change and reduce the increase in the planet's average temperature, which are now even economically constrained.

Listen here in full to the 10am slot on Antena 1, with Pedro Fevereiro's full statements.