Conclusions of the Agri-Food Business Debate Conference held at the Genoa Financial Club on November 14, 2024

2025-07-21
Conclusions of the Conference: The Food Chain Facing Regulatory Challenges in Sustainability

The meeting held on November 14 at the Club Financiero Génova, organized by the Spanish Journal of Agrosocial and Fisheries Studies, brought together prominent representatives of the agri-food sector to discuss regulatory challenges related to sustainability.

CONCLUSIONS

The agri-food sector in Spain continues to demonstrate its importance and competitiveness, contributing 9.2% of the national Gross Value Added: 2.6% from agriculture, 2.5% from the food industry, and 4.1% from food distribution.

Thanks to the work of nearly 600,000 farmers, livestock breeders, and fishers, over 28,000 food industries, and 180,000 distribution companies, Spain stands as an agri-food powerhouse—fourth in exports within the EU and seventh globally—with a diverse, modernized, and competitive production system. Trade figures for 2023 confirm the strength of the external market, with €70.5 billion in exports and €55 billion in imports, resulting in a positive trade balance of €15.5 billion.

Following the debate on “The Food Chain Facing Regulatory Challenges in Sustainability,” held during the November 14 meeting, participants reached a consensus that, despite uncertainties and threats, the Spanish agri-food sector remains competitive and has a promising future. However, it still faces significant challenges and obstacles that must be addressed to fully realize its potential.

Based on this shared confidence in the sector as a generator of value, national wealth, and food sovereignty, the following priority areas for improvement were identified:

  1. Recognize and guarantee the strategic nature of agriculture, livestock, the food industry, and food distribution, given their economic importance and role in sustaining employment and economic activity across much of the country. The essential service nature of the entire supply chain must also be reinforced and valued, as demonstrated during recent crises.

  2. Adopt an integrated value chain perspective in the design and implementation of agricultural policies, considering the needs and capacities of all actors involved. This requires a shift toward treating the agri-food sector as a unified system rather than disconnected or competing subsectors.

  3. Ensure access to diverse, healthy, and affordable food for the entire population, including remote rural areas, thereby guaranteeing the right to food and helping to combat rural depopulation.

  4. Acknowledge agriculture’s role in combating climate change, particularly its ability to absorb and sequester CO₂, and recognize irrigation’s contribution to climate resilience and food sovereignty.

  5. Support producers in adapting to ecological transition policies, which will require reductions in fertilizers, pesticides, veterinary drugs, irrigation water, and an increase in organic production.

  6. Strengthen producers’ bargaining power in the supply chain and price formation by promoting their integration into cooperatives and other organizations, and encouraging the role of interprofessional organizations to foster agreements across the chain.

  7. Promote a value-generating food chain that ensures fair distribution among stakeholders, supports economic returns, fosters new business opportunities, and encourages generational renewal. Legal certainty in commercial relations must be improved by clarifying the interpretation of the Food Chain Law, which has become more complex with recent amendments.

  8. Simplify and harmonize agricultural and food policies at national and regional levels, and align them with European policies on production, marketing, health, environment, animal welfare, and plant health. This includes integrating agricultural information into fewer administrative registers and moving toward a unified system, such as the commercial register model adopted in France in 2021.

    Key areas for coordination and harmonization include:

    • Value chain regulation: Establishing a simple, stable, and balanced legal framework to avoid inefficiencies and tensions.
    • Sustainability regulations: Aligning national laws with EU standards while reducing bureaucracy and compliance costs.
    • Packaging regulations: Ensuring feasibility for operators and avoiding competitiveness loss.

  9. Promote the value of European food production standards in Spain compared to third countries, ensuring that domestic producers are not forced to compete with imports that do not meet the same safety and sustainability requirements. This includes harmonizing import controls on food and raw materials from third countries to protect competitiveness.

  10. Educate consumers about food production systems and the work behind each product to reconnect urban and rural communities and improve the public perception of agriculture and livestock farming.

  11. Promote awareness of the Mediterranean Diet and its benefits, ensuring equal treatment of plant- and animal-based foods, avoiding unscientific bias, and encouraging responsible consumption to reduce food waste in households and the hospitality sector.

  12. Establish early warning systems and a framework for coordination, monitoring, and response to potential disruptions in the food system, enabling proactive and efficient reactions to climate, health, environmental, or political risks.