Africa-Press – Cape verde. Miguel Lopes Montrond, 27 years old, is a young man from Chã das Caldeiras in Fogo who wants to implement an infrastructure with the capacity to transform more than 800 tons of fruit per year and thus give a “new life” to local products, generating employment and added value in the region.
With a degree in Agricultural and Socio-environmental Engineering from the University of Cape Verde (Uni-CV), Miguel Montrond is doing an inter-university master’s degree in viticulture, oenology and wine markets at leading universities in the field of viticulture such as Udine, Conegliano, Verona and Bolzana, all in Italy.
As advanced to Inforpress, with the infrastructure, a unit/cooperative, this small fruit producer wants to invest in the transformation and produce diverse wines, sparkling wines, grape juices, jams, dried fruits and other juices, among several other products that could give “a new life” to products from the island of Fogo, in particular Chã das Caldeiras.
Opportunities to help families
The project is “ambitious”, he acknowledges, but represents the future of an island with “so many opportunities”, and which would certainly “help hundreds of families to improve their living conditions”.
The comprehensive area is about 600 square meters, with an underground cellar where the barrels will be stored and the bottling and labeling will be carried out.
On the first floor there will be space for the entire process of grinding the grapes and, by gravity, the wine and grape juice and juices from other fruits will go to the ground floor without using energy and a product tasting room and a restaurant.
Renewable energy
The project, he guarantees, is “very sustainable” and will run on renewable energies.
According to initial calculations, the project will represent an investment of around 800 thousand euros, close to 90 thousand escudos, noting that the capacity of the winery/cooperative for agro-food processing is “very large” and was projected for the long term.
“There is a large number of fruit plants in all Bordeira of the island of Fogo and in other parts and their transformation is of great importance”, he guarantees.
The unit will have a capacity to produce between 80,000 to 100,000 bottles of wines (sparkling, passitos and regular wines) and 20 to 30,000 liters of juices from various fruits and even more than a ton of dried fruit mix.
community project
He recognized that he alone cannot make the project a reality and therefore underlined that it is a “community project”, and “everyone in which everyone is called upon to give their best”, adding that local and national authorities are invited to to be part of the project, as well as private persons or institutions.
The young man says that he has already spoken with some people and that, as he is at the end of the course, he has little time, which is divided between work and study, but he promised that, as soon as he completes the project, and the master’s degree, he will intensify the work on mobilizing financial resources for its implementation, both with national and international institutions, namely in Italy.
“The first idea is to socialize it as a social project”, he adds, that if there are partnerships, it will be transformed into a project “in which everyone can participate”. However, if there are no partnerships between other associations or private persons, it will implement it alone, even if it lasts longer.
Export
The idea, he says, is to export more than half of the products to the emigrant community in the United States of America (Boston and Brockton), Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.
For this, the project intends to prepare more young people in the transformation area to be able to respond to future demands.
With the volume of investments in fruit plantations, Miguel Montrond predicts that within five years there will be more fruit available and its transformation “extremely important”, noting that it is enough to go to Montinho to see the amount of fruit in development.
Miguel Montrond studies in the northern region of Italy where cooperativism/associativism works “very well”, he pointed out, with “examples of good functioning, especially in the area of wine”, but his main focus would be to prioritize the young winegrowers of the region. island and women.
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