The Foundation has organised a conference on sustainability in the Comunitat Valenciana, which took place at the Cajamar premises and was attended by a number of speakers who discussed the issue.

Eduardo Rojas, a forestry engineer, pointed out, when referring to the Poyo ravine, that “nobody has mentioned that one of its problems was the amount of abandoned farmland it contained, which led to it bursting its banks”, and criticised the injustice of focusing on negative environmental economic measures whilst ignoring the positive ones. Rojas, who is also a lecturer at the UPV, spoke of the regional challenges we face, such as the decline of rural communities; furthermore, he emphasised that nowadays, “we have fewer fires, but the few that do occur burn more intensely every day and are more virulent”. For Rojas, “we are attempting to tackle the challenge of wildfires by addressing the consequences, rather than the causes.” Montes also proposed “tackling small-scale landholdings, strengthening the regional level for service provision and ensuring an appropriate scale, guaranteeing a fair and stable legal framework for the provision of environmental services, training and educating the public on how to respond to emergencies, to increase employment in rural areas, to depoliticise agricultural organisations, to encourage young people to pursue higher education, and to restore the value of the Mediterranean diet”, amongst the numerous proposals he put forward in his speech dedicated to territorial, environmental and social challenges.

The event began with a welcome from Cajamar’s regional director, Jesús García, and from Angel Marhuenda, director of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), who, together with the president of the Fundación Premios Rei Jaume I, Javier Quesada, introduced the various speakers.

The director of the Cajamar Group Foundation, Manuel Laínez, argued, for example, in favour of “reducing the size of companies and relaxing the obligation to implement emissions reduction schemes”. On the subject of climate change, Laínez emphasised that “we have exceeded the 1.5-degree threshold and this year we are still seeing very high averages, with increasingly higher temperatures and greater rainfall. “Advances in technology facilitate innovation through engineering,” he said, and outlined all the tools available to us in biotechnology “which help us with everything related to plant material, making it more resilient and resistant to diseases and pests, whilst improving natural resources and their use, as well as the incorporation of functional ingredients”. For Laínez, “when we are efficient, we manage to reduce our environmental footprints and we will become more competitive”. According to the director of the Cajamar Foundation, the industry of the future “is moving towards cloud-based control linked to new products incorporating AI that respond to producers’ needs—something we are already seeing on today’s farms, where the entire product value chain is managed, from the field to the warehouse, based on various parameters: efficiency, reduction of carbon footprint emissions, with simulation using digital twins that help them visualise what it would be like: organisation, innovation, digital transformation, the incorporation of new technologies and supply chain strategy.” Furthermore, he criticised the fact that “since 2018, investment in R&D&I in Spain has barely increased, with investment in innovation standing at a mere 0.8 per cent. And for 50 years we have been supporting investment in the agri-food chain, trying to make mistakes ourselves so that farmers do not have to. Through special incubator projects for start-ups,” argued Manuel Laínez.

The Director-General for Industry and the Agri-Food Chain, Ernesto Fernández, spoke about rural development, identifying depopulation as the main problem we face, and pointed out that “90 per cent of the population is concentrated in 30 per cent of the territory”, citing the example of Castell de Cabres – the least populated municipality in the entire Valencian Community, located in the Bajo Maestrazgo region with just 22 inhabitants – as the prime example. Fernández explained that “in Castellón, 81.41 per cent of municipalities have fewer than 3,000 inhabitants – that is 110 municipalities – whilst in the province of Valencia, Rincón de Ademuz tops the depopulation statistics”. For the Director-General, the common factor linking all these depopulated villages “is agriculture, where young farmers account for just 5.18 per cent and half of all farmers are over 65 years old, whilst there has been a 35 per cent decline in the number of people registered with the Social Security system. “And by 2023, we will have reached 173,676 ha of abandoned land – or, to put it another way, 2,290 ha more than the previous year – and we are the leaders in Spain in terms of land abandonment,” he emphasised.

Tomás García Azcárate, a CAP specialist, reflected on various issues surrounding the subject: “Agriculture exists to produce food, but it must do so in a sustainable manner; climate change is happening and farmers are amongst its victims.” He called for research into new orange varieties, for example, “to achieve a better balance between the cold and heat caused by climate change.” For García, “adapting to and mitigating climate change is everyone’s responsibility, and it is better to persuade than to force. ‘Von der Leyen’s first Commission has been a despotic bureaucratic blow,’ he denounced, reaffirming that ‘the despotism of the Green Deal is still very much present’. According to the CAP specialist, ‘Spanish agriculture is doing well, but things are not going well for the middle class of family farmers. There isn’t enough money for everyone or for everything, so support for farmers must go to those who need it, whilst large businesses that are doing well do not need help to continue growing,” he pointed out. “The priority,” he asserts, “must be to support the rural middle class – 97 per cent of the agricultural population, professional family farmers – as they move towards Agriculture 4.0 and the agroecological transition.” He added that “the government can and must help to build a more balanced food chain.”

Testimonials

During the testimonials session, six representatives from various companies took part to share their experiences of sustainability. Carlota de Dios spoke about the @TierraBobal tourist destination brand, “an integrated offering featuring landscapes and wine-related activities, wine tourism, gastronomic tourism, etc. “We are part of a system and we don’t realise it,” she said, referring to sustainability “as the capacity to endure over time”.

Vicent Faro, a farmer, organic producer and president of @CAECV, spoke of the three daily challenges: territorial, environmental and social, alongside innovation that supports sustainable production, and explained the various standards that certify organic production.

Javier Gandía, director of Bodegas Vicente Gandía, explained the various certifications that endorse his brand, which covers nearly 500 ha of vineyard area spread across different regions, practising sustainable agriculture and undertaking various projects – such as the latest one, for which they are channelling the funds raised to an animal welfare foundation.

Carmen Morales, director of quality and sustainability at Anecoop, explained the various sustainability tools available to the cooperative’s members. “The time is now,” she said of the cooperative, which has over 20,000 members in Spain and whose commercial network extends across the globe, although she acknowledged that “sustainability is not yet truly integrated”.

Olga Moreno, a doctor and agricultural engineer as well as a lecturer in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, called for a change in the way choices are structured, which pushes us to buy certain foods in the shops: “In our daily lives, we are pushed to choose between A or B, so we should be guided towards sustainable products that are promoted with reliable, easy-to-read labels to help us make quick decisions; in other words, sustainable options should be easily identifiable and affordable,” she argued, whilst appealing to society’s sense of responsibility.

Finally, Inmaculada Sanfeliu spoke about Intercitrus, plant protection, CRISPR research and the promotion so strongly called for by the sector. She cited ZUVamesa as a model of sustainability – a leading example in areas such as energy, the environment and zero waste – which arose “from the need to promote an industry for citrus fruits that cannot be sold on the fresh produce market.” Sanfeliu pointed out that “the citrus sector ranks third in the Comunitat Valenciana, where one in every four oranges exported worldwide is Spanish, and more than 70 per cent of the citrus trade originates from the Comunitat Valenciana, with 175,000 lorries leaving each year, covering 307,000 hectares – the equivalent of 330,000 football pitches – which would absorb between 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂,” he concluded.