The first batches of certified wood intended for the manufacture of sustainable construction products will go on sale this year.

Producers associated with the European LIFE Wood for the Future project are preparing to enter the carbon credit market.

Granada, February 20, 2024

The Agrupación de Productores Marjal Chopo de Granada held this Monday an extraordinary assembly in which it approved its first expansion of partners, in which 28 new owners joined the 73 founders, which allows the entity to reach a hundred members, with a total of 1,416 hectares of cultivation.

The group was formed in May 2022 within the framework of LIFE Wood for Future/Madera para el Futuro (LWFF), the project led by the University of Granada and financed by the European Union as part of its strategy for action against climate change.

Sponsored by the Confederación de Organizaciones de Selvicultores de España (COSE), a partner of the LIFE project, its objectives are to carry out a common management of poplar plantations to obtain quality, sustainable and certified wood; to plan the resource to supply the industry on a constant basis; to develop a brand with a designation of origin; sell or auction joint wood lots to obtain better prices in order to stabilize production; exercise a common defense of their interests with regard to agricultural insurance, CAP aid and the sale of carbon credits for emissions markets; and act as a single interlocutor with the administrations.

COSE’s manager, Patricia Gómez, explained that, together with the increase in membership and the ratification of a withdrawal -which leaves the number of members at just 100-, one of the main agreements was to continue with the training program for the professionalization of the sector, which began last year with a course on plant health.

On this occasion, the workshop to be held in the spring will address the management of poplar trees (watering and pruning) to adapt the trees to the certification system that allows owners to put on the market a higher value product, intended for the manufacture of elements for sustainable building: straight trunks, free of knots in the first six meters and with a diameter of 30 centimeters. “This year we are going to sell the first batches of Marjal certified wood together,” the foresters’ leader emphasized.

Another great novelty is that, with the support of researchers from the University of Granada, measurements are being taken of the CO2 captured by the poplars at different levels (trunk, branches, roots, leaves and soil), in order to be able to sell credits in the voluntary emissions market to companies that wish to reduce their ecological footprint, which will generate extra income for the producers.

Patricia Gómez recalled that, thanks to their rapid growth, poplars are effective carbon sinks, in addition to purifying polluted water, which they clean up in rivers and aquifers, attracting biodiversity and refreshing the environment.

The president of Marjal, Victoria Carreras, expressed her satisfaction because at the assembly “the confidence of the poplar growers in the group has been reinforced, with the incorporation of new members, and the advances of the sector in professionalization and in the development of the product through the LIFE project have been highlighted. We are on the right track and we continue to add up”.

Poplar recovery in Granada

The creation and development of the Marjal group represents a boost to the poplar bioeconomy, since almost a quarter of the crops whose owners are part of the association come from other crops, such as garlic, cereals, asparagus and corn, or from fallow land, which indicates that the cultivation of ‘Populus’ is recovering in the province, where in the last two decades it had lost 75% of its surface area, going from more than 12,000 hectares -Granada was once one of the leading areas in Spain in this crop- to less than 4,000.

Among the members of the group, almost 60% are small landowners (between 1 and 5 hectares) and around 15% have more than 20 hectares. Also, almost half of the area is located in the Vega of Granada, a third in the northern part of the province and the rest in other regions of Granada or Andalusian provinces (Jaen, Cordoba and Seville).

The board of directors, presided by Victoria Carreras, is also formed by the vice-president, Juan Carlos Cano; the secretary, Alberto de la Torre; the treasurer, Carmen López; and five members. The honorary president is Javier de Teresa and the advisory committee is made up of technicians from the LIFE project and Ifapa.

Poplar Museum in Santa Fe

The headquarters of the cluster is provisionally located at the headquarters of the Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research (Ifapa) of the Junta de Andalucía, in Camino de Purchil, but the cluster and the LIFE project will propose to the UGR its definitive location in the San Isidro Sugar Factory. Marjal will also participate in the project that IberoLam Timber & Technology, the spinoff of the UGR that aims to become the first Andalusian wood industry for sustainable construction, will develop in collaboration with the City of Santa Fe and the Diputación de Granada to install a poplar museum in the Señor de la Salud sugar factory in the municipality of Santa Fe.

LIFE Wood for Future/Madera para el Futuro, which has obtained funding from the European Union’s LIFE Program [LIFE20 CCM/ES/001656] for the environment and climate action for 4 years, is integrated by the University of Granada, the Provincial Council, the Confederation of Forestry Organizations of Spain, the University of Santiago de Compostela and the spinoff 3edata.