The objective is to reduce the travel of resin workers to the pine forests and have an equivalent production, to reduce the necessary labor, increase the quality of the final product, and train new resin workers.
Portugal may double the current 250 million euros per year generated by the resin sector in the coming years, said this Monday the president of Resipinus – Association of Resin Distillers and Explorers.
“The industry has this capacity to achieve this goal in two or three years, but it needs to have raw material and to have resinated pine forests,” said Marco Ribeiro, who was speaking to the Lusa agency after the “Resinae Ignite” meeting, which took place this afternoon in Pampilhosa da Serra, in the interior of the district of Coimbra, within the scope of the RN21 integrated project.
In the initiative, which brought together entrepreneurs, producers, researchers, and institutional representatives, the association leader pointed out that Portugal resin between 20 and 25 thousand hectares of pine forest, when, according to statistics, the country has between 600 and 700 thousand hectares, which gives a large margin”.
According to the president of Resipinus, within the scope of the RN21 project, which ends in December, but which can be extended a few more months, new extraction methods are being studied, less expensive, since currently the costs of extracting the resin are high.
The RN21 project brings together, for the first time, the resin sector in Portugal, in a consortium that aims to invest in research and innovation to modernize and revitalize one of the most traditional sectors of the national economy, in order to value natural resin as a “bio” product.
“We are taking the opportunity to develop some modernization, to bring new extraction models, more efficient, with some parts even mechanized, which until now was not possible, so that we can be more efficient in the extraction process,” explained Marco Ribeiro.
The objective is to reduce the travel of resin workers to the pine forests and have an equivalent production, to reduce the necessary labor, increase the quality of the final product, through a container that allows the characteristics of the resin to be maintained, and to train new resin workers with new methods.
“The market is demanding, it wants quality products, and we currently, with the traditional method, cannot achieve this product, and therefore, these new methods, which are more attractive, can bring positive aspects for the future”, he maintained.
For the association leader, if there is no economic valorization of this type of work, it will be difficult to attract “anyone to the sector and, therefore, we have to take this step of modernization”.
Also within the scope of the RN21 project, the PINUS Center – Association for the Enhancement of the Pine Forest, which brings together the main agents in the pine sector, announced this Monday that, together with several partners, it is starting a project to genetically improve maritime pine to produce more resin.
“It is intended to select the trees that may exist in the country and that are more productive in resin. From a current average of two kilos per pine tree, we have some that produce four kilos, and through a field trial, we intend to test whether this productivity is genetic”, stressed Pedro Teixeira.
If the tests confirm that the higher production is associated with a genetic issue, seeds and genetic material will be removed to replicate in new plants “that, from the outset, will be more productive”, which can happen within a decade, being “an advantage for the entire value chain”, explained the technician.
At the “Resinae Ignite” meeting, the “Resinae” brand was officially presented, a symbol of quality, which aims to strengthen the position of the sector and boost natural resin to a level of competitiveness that responds to the demands of a market increasingly focused on sustainability.
“The brand turns out to be the culmination of a joint effort to have public recognition and extra appreciation of the natural resin, which is used in a series of products that we use daily”, underlined Rogério Rodrigues, coordinator of the RN21 project, which has an investment of more than 26 million euros and a subsidy of 17.5 million euros, supported by the Recovery and Resilience Plan.
The project is led by CoLAB ForestWISE (Collaborative Laboratory for the Integrated Management of Forest and Fire) and involves 37 entities, which will combine public and private investments, based on three pillars: promotion of the production of national natural resin, strengthening the sustainability of the manufacturing industry, and positive differentiation of natural resin and derived products.
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