In statements to the Lusa news agency, Artur Gregório from the In Loco association, said that the project began to be developed about two years ago, based on “other initiatives” already implemented in the past to create “instruments and tools that facilitate this connection between production and consumption,” such as the Prove or Prato Certo projects.

During that period, the partners listened to producers, consumers, producer and development associations to “identify which tools, methodologies, and organizational models” could help to “increase this connection between production and consumption,” he said.

From this dialogue arose the need to create a “platform, a meeting point for dialogue and knowledge” that would provide producers and consumers with a “digital tool” to facilitate communication between the parties, he noted.

“But is the digital platform indispensable? It is not indispensable, it is just a tool, because what is most important is the methodology, the model, the mode of governance, the trust generated between producers and consumers who organize themselves in a village,” to distribute quality agri-food production, without intermediaries and with greater benefit for the producer, he considered.

With the creation of agro-villages, the aim is to “consolidate” trust between producers and consumers and “give rise to exchanges,” increasing the “logic of local production, sustainable production, sustainable production methods, and the Mediterranean lifestyle,” he defined.

“All of these are elements that give these villages their own personality and characteristics, and we want them to have autonomous continuity […] and, at the end of the project, for the villages to have continuity because their managers are members of the community, they are members of the producers and consumers who will maintain and revitalize them in the future,” he added.

The ultimate goal is to guarantee “continuity and growth far beyond the horizon of the project” and then extend the agro-villages to other sub-regions, such as Barlavento (west) or Sotavento (east), in the case of the Algarve, he stressed.

Artur Gregório highlighted that these pilot projects will be the “first seeds” in each region, and the space in São Brás de Alportel will take advantage of the facilities that In Loco already has in the Algarve municipality to “create the conditions” conducive to fostering proximity between production and consumption.

“They may have different forms of organization, largely depending on their needs. If producers in one region prefer to have a distribution point in one location and at one time, it may be different in another location [...]. Therefore, it is this combination of needs and the availability of the supply itself that creates the ideal solution for each region,” added Artur Gregório.

Funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) within the scope of research, development and innovation projects, the project has a “very broad partnership” involving several entities, such as the polytechnic institutes of Coimbra and Porto, the Regional Directorate of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Center, New Organic Planet, and the In Loco association, responsible for its implementation in the Algarve region.

The inauguration of the Algarve agro-village, in São Brás de Alportel, is scheduled for November 27th at 5 pm.