The head of INTA in San Juan spoke of the activity carried out by the agency in the province and how they have adapted in the pandemic. He stressed the importance of all the actions they develop to reduce the water crisis.
Mónica Ruiz, is the first woman to lead the INTA destinations in San Juan. After two months in office, the official was in Diario 35 where she gave a detail of issues that INTA has been working on and its relationship with other institutions.
The graduate Ruiz pointed out that “the times of the pandemic have greatly conditioned our mobility and arrival in the territory, but new strategies have emerged that have been sustained by creativity, in order to continue serving producers and the community as a whole.”
In that sense, he highlighted the Virtual Agency as a tool “which is a new option that was launched so that people can make their inquiries that they previously made in person at the Extension Agency, now they can do so with this service.” Regarding the acceptance that the service has had in the producers, he stated that “like everything there is some resistance to change, but the virtual agency has many queries. Also, another service of attention to the citizenship and the producers has been implemented. This is the way to keep in touch ”.
In any case, he stressed that the Experimental Station in Pocito has remained open despite the problems of the Pandemic, with very strict protocols.
The projects where they are working
Ruiz said that “since last year we have a portfolio of very important projects and luckily we have financing.” In that sense, he explained that the projects address different problems “that have to do with the different production chains and other aspects. This allows us to advance in knowledge and new technologies, but this is never enough ”. It is worth noting that INTA, in order to advance with its research, also has other sources of external financing from other institutions such as the Government of the Province and with Science and Technology we have carried out a large number of important projects ”.
The official stated that given the complexity of many problems “the vision of a single institution is not enough to solve them. For this reason, it is necessary to network with other institutions and work together having an expanded vision of complex situations. ” In this sense, he affirmed that they have joint works with the Government of the province, the UNSJ, the INA, and the CONAE, with which “we try to reach the territory with a common message and in that way provide real solutions to the people.”
Diploma to manage irrigation
Ruiz said that yesterday a diploma in Irrigation and Fertilization Management was launched.
This is a joint work that “we do with the Department of Agronomy of the UNSJ. The idea of this is to provide society with specific training and the objective is that the people who are trained with this diploma, have a next step, which is the formation of small companies that provide services related to irrigation and fertilization. It is for this reason that the intention is to provide knowledge regarding the efficiency of water management ”.
THE PROJECT TO CREATE THE WATER INSTITUTE IN SJ
Among the projects being carried out by INTA with other institutions is the creation of the Water Institute in San Juan. Ms. Ruiz remarked that “it is an institutional project that we have finished preparing and we are presenting it for financing.” The participating institutions are INTA, INA, CONAE, Government of San Juan, UNSJ.
He added that “the idea is to have a place of confluence of all these institutions to work together to work on this issue that is so important to us who live in the desert, such as water. The idea is that in this place all the jobs that the different institutions do are to be found in such a way that all the information is decentralized, that it is not atomized and that it is available in one place ”.
—
