Arucas Puerta Norte Episodio 09

Episode 9. Víctor: sacrifice and agriculture

Víctor Vega started working at the Cooperativa Agrícola del Norte in 2010, when he was just 18 years old. This young man, a native from Santa María de Guía, with family roots in Arucas, has found in the primary sector a place to carry out professional work that is very necessary for the island's productive system. He combines his work with his love for livestock farming and local sports such as cattle pulling. Víctor has found in the primary sector an opportunity for personal and professional development.

Working in the banana plantations has been one of the traditional occupations in the municipality of Arucas, in which men and women, with great sacrifice, have been responsible for the whole production process of the Canary Island banana, until the final product reaches people’s homes.

‘Banana cultivation in Arucas is the history and unmistakable image of the town. I think they should take advantage of tourism a little more, not just by only selling them bananas, the product, but also by showing them the plantations and the work that is carried out on them. The growth and the day-to-day work, the rural world has a lot to offer tourism, we just have to focus on it and make ourselves known".

Víctor knows the banana production process very well, from the plantation to the final transport for the marketing of the product, and he highlights the effort and the enormous sacrifices that both workers and companies make every day. Agricultural culture and water culture merge in our municipality, and find in La Heredad de Aguas de Arucas y Firgas an institution that is the custodian of the history and enormous ethnographic heritage of the municipality, with dams, irrigation ditches, canals and aqueducts necessary to understand the history of banana cultivation in Arucas and Plátano de Canarias.

We thank Víctor for his dedication and time and the work he does in this agricultural sector, and we congratulate the Cooperativa Agrícola del Norte, which in 2022 will be 100 years since it began its activity.