Closing ceremony of “Senspa Project” was held at Agricultural Economics Research Center

On January 15, the closing ceremony of the project “Sustainable Management of Senspa-pastures” was held at the Agricultural Economics Research Center under the Ministry of Agriculture. Apostolos Karteris, director of “kartECO”, which is the executive of the project, gave an overview and thanked the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan for their support in the project.

Then Firdovsi Fikratzade, director of the Agricultural Economics Research Center made a speech. Expressing gratitude to the project management for the initial result, Fikratzade emphasized the importance of the goal and implementation work, and noted that the project has high expectations.

Later, the EU delegation to Azerbaijan, Rainer Freund, delivered a speech. He thanked the participants for participating in the project and said that the project is funded by the European Space Agency.

R. Freund said that the goal of the project is more efficient with using of pastures, including a scientific approach.

After the opening speech, the project was presented. The presentation was made by Emmanuel Tsiros, “kartECO” employee. He spoke about the goals, the implementation work and the results. He emphasized that the main goal of the project is to achieve more efficient, durable and sustainable use of pastures. To do this, satellite pastures are tracked, and the results are grouped and analyzed.

Providing detailed information about “SenSPa”, the features of this tool, as well as the research methodology and model under construction, E.Tiros said that the Ismayilli and Shamakhi districts were chosen as pilot sites in Azerbaijan. A total of 3685 square meters were surveyed in these areas. Km of land, pasture conditions and potential for feed production have been investigated.

E.Tsiros also thanked the Azerbaijani side for supporting the study and noted that Arshad Yashar, chief of division at the Agricultural Economics Research Center also participated in the project.

Speaking about the results of the project, the speaker said that three key issues were focused on: sustainable pasture management, cost reduction and compliance with the UN Development Goals.

As it turned out, the web portal has been operating for more than 3 months, and advertising materials have been published.

Then a short video was shown indicating the course and objectives of the project.

It should be noted that on January 15-16, two seminars were held at the Agricultural Economics Research Center. The seminars presented a more detailed presentation of the project and extensive discussions were held.