Luis Planas: We are "Spain Food Nation" and we must be "Spain FoodTech Nation"

2022.9.30

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According to Planas, "we are now Spain Food Nation and we must work to become Spain FoodTech Nation", to provide the agri-food sector with the tools that will enable it to conquer the future.

Today, the Minister participated in the closing ceremony of the V Startup Europe Smart Agrifood Summit, which was held in Malaga, a national and European benchmark meeting on the digital transformation of the agrifood sector, where he assured that digitisation and smart solutions are essential for generating more food with the use of fewer natural resources, such as water and soil.

Planas stressed the need to join forces to promote these processes and consolidate Spain as a world agri-food power. He emphasised the export vocation of the agri-food sector, with a value of around EUR 64.4 billion and a positive trade balance of EUR 16 billion.

In Spain, the agri-food sector is made up of 914,000 agricultural and livestock farms, over 30,200 industries and 24,000 shops. In 2021, it accounted for 9.2% of total Spanish GDP and generated 2.3 million direct and indirect jobs. It is also the fourth highest value of agricultural production in the European Union, with over EUR 56 billion.

To support the agri-food sector in its transformation process, the Government of Spain will allocate EUR 102 million to digitalisation. Of this, EUR 64 million will finance the 21 measures of the 2021-2023 II Action Plan under the Digitalisation Strategy for the agri-food sector and rural areas, the aim of which is to reduce the digital divide between urban and rural areas, promote the use of data in agriculture and create new business models. This is in addition to a further EUR 38 million from the NextGeneration funds, also aimed at boosting the Digitalisation Strategy.

Furthermore, the digital transformation will be reinforced with support measures from the Strategic Agri-Food Plan (PERTE) and the AgroImpulso line of participative loans, in collaboration with the National Innovation Company (ENISA). The Minister also mentioned the Digital Innovation Centre (iHub), currently out to tender, which, with a budget of over EUR 7.5 million, will begin its work in the field of irrigation and will later extend its field of action to precision agriculture.

All these actions must include the initiatives launched by other ministerial departments, among which the digital kit, promoted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation to finance the digital improvement of farms and agricultural industries, stands out.

With regard to the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Luis Planas assured that this has the largest budget allocation for innovation aid, within the framework of the European Innovation Partnership for Productive and Sustainable Agriculture (EIP-Agri).

Likewise, he indicated that, during its Presidency of the European Union during the second half of 2023, Spain will promote the debate on the use of new gene editing techniques, which will promote a "second green revolution", in order to produce "more with fewer resources".

Non official translation