{"id":13825,"date":"2025-01-27T10:26:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T10:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/?p=13825"},"modified":"2025-06-24T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T11:06:18","slug":"innovplantprotect-celebrated-its-6th-anniversary-in-the-presence-of-the-minister-of-agriculture-and-fisheries","status":"publish","type":"eventos","link":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/eventos\/innovplantprotect-comemorou-6-o-aniversario-na-presenca-do-ministro-da-agricultura-e-pescas\/","title":{"rendered":"InnovPlantProtect celebrated its 6th anniversary in the presence of the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries"},"content":{"rendered":"

InnovPlantProtect (InPP) celebrated its 6th anniversary this Friday, January 24, 2025, at the Auditorium of the National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research (INIAV) - Elvas Pole, in Elvas, with 120 guests in attendance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commemorative session was attended by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes, who was accompanied by the Secretary of State for Agriculture, Jo\u00e3o Moura, the vice-president of the Alentejo Regional Coordination and Development Commission (CCDR Alentejo) who holds the agriculture portfolio, Roberto Grilo, and the President of INIAV, IP, Nuno Canada. Also present at the commemoration was the councillor from Elvas Municipal Council (CM), representing Jos\u00e9 Rond\u00e3o Almeida, the mayor of Elvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The welcome session was led by Ant\u00f3nio Saraiva, InPP's executive director, who began by thanking all the guests present, and especially INIAV, the Municipality of Elvas and the associates for all their support. The executive director, who took up his post in December last year, congratulated the entire InPP team, to a standing ovation from all the guests present at the celebration: \u201cToday is our day. We're six years old!\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After two months as CEO, Ant\u00f3nio Saraiva considers CoLAB to be a \u201ctrue case study\u201d, with \u201ctraining skills, professional experience and a dedicated 100% human resources team that has attracted and retained talent from the north to the south of the country and also from Madeira, but also from abroad\u201d. InPP already has an international team of 46 employees of 10 nationalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The InPP \u201chas been a very attractive option for highly qualified work for young people in the region and the Alentejo, (...) working for the benefit of the competitiveness of Agriculture\u201d, he stressed. \u201cWe are contributing to the modernization of agriculture so that it can respond to the needs of its professionals and the expectations of society.\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ant\u00f3nio Saraiva, executive director of the InPP, during the welcoming session for participants in the 6th Anniversary of the InPP<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The InnovPlantProtect brand is already a recognized reference throughout the country, particularly in the agricultural sector and, according to Ant\u00f3nio Saraiva, \u201cthe importance of InPP goes far beyond the Alentejo region\u201d, recalling the concept behind its creation: to develop an R&D laboratory capable of responding to the lack of phytosanitary solutions that agricultural producers have been experiencing, with a focus on crops from the Mediterranean region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For six years, CoLAB has been developing bioinspired products, such as bioprotectants and biostimulants, as well as laboratory and digital services \u201cprovided to all those who come to us. We are helping to meet the needs of the countryside and companies in the agricultural sector,\u201d he emphasized. InPP currently has more than a hundred partners and clients, in projects and collaborations, and in the provision of technical and scientific assistance services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seven national and international patent applications already produced by CoLAB to protect crops against various diseases that affect them at regional and national level were also highlighted in the executive director's speech. \u201cWe hope to have three more patent applications by the end of this year. It's a lengthy and very intense process, but we're going to do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another of the points addressed by the CoLAB leader was the visit by the president of the National Innovation Agency (ANI), Ant\u00f3nio Grilo, on January 20th. The president of ANI \u201cleft a positive note of InPP's excellent work, materialized mainly in the results obtained with the registration of patents, but was unable to say anything about the funding model after 2025\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The executive director ended his speech by alerting the minister to the need for CoLABs to be informed \u201cin good time\u201d about the funding available after 2025 \u201cso that we can project our future activity, and so that the team can focus on what is essential and not lose its focus\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the welcome session, there was a session entitled \u201cWhat innovation is produced at InPP?\u201d, in which two department directors, Cristina Azevedo and Ricardo Ramiro, introduced their teams and gave examples of biopesticides that are effective against the diseases fire blight and pyriculariosis in rice, a broad-spectrum biofungicide against gray rot in tomatoes, as well as the use of drones and artificial intelligence to monitor pests in the main agricultural crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the latest innovations is the iCountPests app, which not only reduces the time invested in monitoring and creating a pest history, but also contributes to better management of the pests present in the farmer's field, democratizing access to technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From left to right: Cristina Azevedo, director of the New Biopesticides Department; Ricardo Ramiro, director of the Data Management and Risk Analysis Department; Jo\u00e3o Moura, Secretary of State for Agriculture; and Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, during the session \u201cWhat innovation is produced at the InPP?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes, was in charge of the closing session. To the words heard during the speech by the executive director of InPP, \u201centrepreneurship and passion\u201d, the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries chose the word \u201cambition\u201d to kick off the closing session. \u201cWe have to have the ambition to make things happen, to take risks, to not be afraid, to move forward,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister highlighted the word ambition when referring to the seven patents that are currently underway and also stressed the \u201cabsolutely essential\u201d role of applied research in creating real impact in the agricultural sector and local communities, giving the example of the fire blight disease that affects pear and apple trees, \u201ca challenge that we have to overcome\u201d and for which the InPP team has already filed the first international patent application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his speech, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes not only didn't forget the \u201cother pests and diseases\u201d, he also said that \u201cclimate change, as we all know, is here and we have to make a collaborative effort, seeking to share what is being done in European terms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries congratulated the InPP team \u201cnot only for all their work, but for allowing me to be here with you\u201d and was pleased that it was made up largely of young people, when in the agricultural sector at national level the average age is one of the highest in the European Union, at 64, and \u201cwhat we are trying to do is generational renewal. I'm very pleased when I only see young people, and young people whose faces show joy, which means that this glow you see is a sign of hope, of confidence, and with a multicultural team, that can only add to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can count on us, on our support, but we are also counting on you to change what is an urgent need, which is to change the perception of agriculture: an agriculture that is increasingly modern, an agriculture that needs to be rejuvenated, where the farmer's income needs to be improved and an agriculture that is essential for our food security, and for our strategic autonomy,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, during the closing session of the 6th Anniversary of the InPP<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The InnovPlantProtect team with the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes, during the session commemorating the 6th anniversary of the InPP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The session continued with a drink for the guests, during which InPP was congratulated with a birthday cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The balance of the commemorative event was positive, having been able to attract the Elven community, representatives of various companies and agricultural producers, and the academic community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After six years, InPP promotes the transfer of knowledge, reinforces its position as a CoLAB capable of fostering the development of new technologies, products and services with a strong technological and innovation component, and strengthens its commitment to promoting solutions that make a difference in tackling the various challenges of agricultural crop protection.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O InnovPlantProtect (InPP) celebrou o 6.\u00b0 anivers\u00e1rio esta sexta-feira, dia 24 de janeiro de 2025, no Audit\u00f3rio do Instituto Nacional de Investiga\u00e7\u00e3o Agr\u00e1ria e Veterin\u00e1ria (INIAV) \u2013 Polo de Elvas, em Elvas, com a presen\u00e7a de 120 convidados. A sess\u00e3o comemorativa contou com a presen\u00e7a do ministro da Agricultura e Pescas, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Fernandes, que […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15674,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13825","eventos","type-eventos","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eventos\/13825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eventos"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/eventos"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eventos\/13825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15675,"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/eventos\/13825\/revisions\/15675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iplantprotect.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}