The Agricultural and Forestry School of Santa Coloma de Farners has hosted the first meeting of the project's panel of experts SURROGATE to develop a cork peeler certification. About twenty people from institutions, research and training centers, forestry associations, auctioneers and professional midwives attended, who made themselves available to the members of the project to share their experience and knowledge with the aim of making this a useful course for the sector.

The objective of the commission of experts will be advise on the creation of the course standards, the definition of the tasks and the examination paper and supervise the writing of the peeler course manual.

Once this committee has been formed, the next contact with the experts will be to hold a meeting in the forest at the beginning of 2023 to start working on the specific terminology of the course and define the basic skills that midwives must achieve.

the project

SUROCAT is a project of Forestry Science and Technology Center of Catalonia (CTFC) with the participation of theAgricultural and Forestry School of Santa Coloma de Farners, the Forestry Consortium of Catalonia (CFC) and of the Catalan Institute of Cork Foundation (ICSuro) and has the support of the Department of Climate Action of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the European Funds for Agricultural Development (FEADER). Activity financed through Operation 01.02.01 of Technological Transfer of the Rural Development Program of Catalonia 2014-2022.

Its mission is the creation of an official cork peeler certification inspired by the European chainsaw driver's license to value the trade, professionalize it, ensure generational succession and increase productivity through the inclusion of factors such as forest management or cam mechanization.