The project was born in 2007 when, in a pioneer way, El Carpio made a bet to diversify the fruit horticulture crops on these lowlands in order to increase the low incomes of farmers.

It replaced the traditional wheat and sunflower sow by aromatic and medical plants such as: hypericum perforatum and dens leonis, Echinacea, red shamrock… from which the medical plants are obtained. The reason: one kilo of dens leonis cost €2, while the kilo of wheat was no more than 15 cents. The first steps were taken thanks to an agreement between GDR MG and the company Plantalia Natural from Madrid.

The initiative has already grown, nowadays, GDR has two demo fields, placed on “Cebrián” (Villafranca) and “El Encinarejo Alto” (Posadas), where aloe, almond trees, paulonia and other medical plants, on the side of the aromatic ones, we have: rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano or mint.
This is a different way of cropping, based on crops different from the ones for food uses; they are framed on the areas of: cosmetics, essences and Bio-Mass.

Concretely, the area counts with 2000 m2 of aloe vera, which will produce fine leaves in two years’ time.

Until now, the seeds have been sowed easily, showing a great qualification of adaptation by growing under plastic. This way, in another surface just like this one, 10 different species of aromatic and medical plants have been planted.

In addition, facing the actual great requirement, 5 clones of paulonia are cultivated with destination both to the wood industry and to the electric generation factories.

These trees were planted in May, 2009 and some of them reach the height of 2,5 m.

Rafael Cañete. President of GDR MG, claim that with these options, “the demo field stands up as a development farming agent in this area”