The facility will be located on a farm owned by the IRFAP and is expected to require an investment of more than six million euros.
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The animal health control laboratories in Son Ferriol
The aim is for the work to be completed before the end of the current legislature.
The Consell de Govern has declared the construction of a building in Son Ferriol to house the official control laboratories for animal health, lactology and plant health in the Balearic Islands to be an investment of regional interest. The facility will be built on an estate owned by the Balearic Islands Institute for Agri-Food and Fisheries Research and Training (IRFAP) and is expected to require an investment of more than six million euros. The aim is for the work to be completed before the end of the legislature. It should be remembered that the official control laboratories are currently located on the same property, in an old building. The project will consist of demolishing this facility in order to build a more modern one.
The location of these IRFAP laboratories in Son Ferriol allows, on the one hand, being a few kilometres away from the Son Espases University Hospital, the Institute for Health Research of the Balearic Islands (IDISBA), the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and the Balearic Technological Innovation Park (ParcBIT) and, on the other hand, facilitates the arrival of samples from farms and agri-food industries thanks to the connection with the main land communication routes, the ports and the airport of Palma.
Human health, plant health and animal health are closely related to each other. A large part of transmissible human diseases are transmitted to people from animals and the vast majority of emerging pathogens are of animal origin. For all these reasons, animal health is considered a key factor for public health, not only in terms of the prevention of transmissible diseases between animals and humans, but also in relation to the fundamental objective of primary production, which is none other than to obtain healthy, safe and quality food.
The Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment recalls that Balearic farms are subject to a series of rules that regulate production and that are part of the policy of food sovereignty and security of Spain and the European Union. Within the framework of the Government’s competences in agricultural and fisheries matters, the IRFAP’s functions include carrying out field and laboratory work in the field of agricultural and fisheries health. In this way, the construction of the new laboratories will contribute to providing an adequate and permanent response to the scientific, technical and social challenges that arise in the agricultural and agri-food fields.