The Foundation has organized a conference dedicated to sustainability in the Valencian Community, which was held at the Cajamar facilities where several speakers were present to discuss about the issue.

Eduardo Rojas, forestry engineer, denounced, when referring to the Poyo ravine that “no one has said that one of its problems was the amount of abandoned agriculture that it housed, which led to its overflow” and denounced the injustice of focusing on negative environmental economic instruments and ignoring the positive ones. Rojas, who is also a professor at the UPV, spoke of the territorial challenges we face, such as the collapse of the proposal of the rural world, and emphasized that today, “we have fewer fires, but the few that there are, burn more every day and are more virulent”. For Rojas, “we intend to solve the challenge of fires by attacking the consequences, but not their causes.” Montes, in addition, proposed to “address the smallholding, strengthen the regional step for the provision of services and adequate dimension, ensure a fair and stable legal framework to provide environmental services, train and educate the population in cases of emergencies, increase employment in rural areas, depoliticize agricultural organizations, motivate young people to study careers or recover the value of the Mediterranean diet,” among the many proposals he made in his speech dedicated to territorial, environmental and social challenges.

The day began with the welcome of the territorial director of Cajamar, Jesús García, as well as Angel Marhuenda, director of the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) who, together with the president of the Rei Jaume I Prizes Foundation, Javier Quesada, gave way to the various interventions.

Thus the director of the Cajamar Group Foundation, Manuel Laínez, defended “reducing the size of companies and relaxing the obligation of the need to implement emission reduction schemes”, for example . Regarding climate change, Laínez stressed that “we have exceeded the level of 1.5 degrees and this year we continue with very high averages, increasingly higher temperatures and more rainfall. The advance of technology facilitates innovation with engineering“ and explained all the tools that we have dedicated to biotechnology” that serve us for everything related to plant material that will make it more resilient and resistant to diseases and pests, with the improvement of natural resources and their use, in addition to the incorporation of functional ingredients”. For Laínez, “when we are efficient, we manage to reduce the environmental footprint and we will be more competitive”. According to the director of the Cajamar foundation, the industry of the future “is going towards a control in the cloud connected with new products that incorporate AI responding to the needs of producers and that we see already in farms today where they have controlled the entire value chain of the product from the field to the warehouse with several parameters: efficiency, reduction of emissions of footprints, with simulation in the twin chain that help them to experience how it would be: organization, innovation, digital transformation, incorporation of new technologies and chain strategy.” In addition, he denounced that “since 2018 there has barely been an increase in R&D investment in Spain, with barely 0.8 investment in innovation. And we have been supporting investment for 50 years in the agri-food chain trying to get it wrong ourselves so that the farmer does not. With special incubator projects for new companies,” defended Manuel Laínez.

The general director of industry and agri-food chain, Ernesto Fernandez, spoke of rural development with the issue of depopulation as the main problem we face, and recalled that “90% of the population is concentrated in 30% of the territory” with the case of Castell de Cabres, less populated municipality of the whole CV in the Bajo Maestrazgo with only 22 inhabitants, as the maximum exponent. Fernandez said that “in Castellon there is 81.41% of municipalities with less than 3,000 inhabitants, which are 110 municipalities and in the province of Valencia, it is the Rincón de Ademuz who leads the depopulation data”. For the general director, the common denominator that unites all the depopulated villages “is agriculture, where young farmers only represent 5.18% and half of the farmers are over 65 years old, in addition to the fact that 35% of those affiliated to the SS have been lost. And in 2023 we reached 173,676 ha. abandoned or, what is the same, 2,290 ha. more than the previous year and we are leaders in Spain in land abandonment” he emphasized.

Tomás García Azcárate, a specialist in the CAP, reflected on various issues related to the subject: “agriculture exists to produce food, but it must do so in a sustainable manner, there is climate change and farmers are among its victims and called for the search for orange varieties, for example, ”to achieve a better balance between the cold and heat caused by climate change”. For Garcia, “adaptation and mitigation of climate change is for everyone and it is better to convince than to win. Von der Leyen’s first commission was a despotic bureaucratic coup“ he denounced and reaffirmed that ”the despotism of the Green Deal is still present”. For the CAP specialist, “Spanish agriculture is doing well, but the middle class of family farmers are not faring well. There is not enough money for everyone and everything, so aid to farmers must go to those who need it, and large entrepreneurs who are doing well do not need help to develop further,” he recalled. “The priority, he says, should be to accompany the rural middle class, 97% of the agricultural population, professional family members towards agriculture 4.0 and agroecological transition.” In addition, he added that “the administration can and should help to build a more balanced food chain”.

Testimonials

In the turn of the testimonies, there have been six representatives of various companies that participated to narrate their experiences in sustainability, thus, Carlota de Dios spoke about the @TierraBobal tourism destination brand “integrated offer with some landscapes and wine offers, wine tourism, gastronomic tourism, etc. we are a system and we do not realize” she said referring to sustainability “as the ability to endure over time”.

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

Javier Gandía, director of Bodegas Vicente Gandía, explained the different certifications that endorse his brand that covers about 500 ha. of vineyard area spread over different areas with sustainable agriculture and various projects such as the last one to which the funds raised are dedicated to a foundation for the protection of animals.

Carmen Morales, director of quality and sustainability in Anecoop explained the various tools in sustainability for the cooperative’s members, “now is the time” he said about the cooperative with more than 20. 000 members in Spain whose commercial network extends all over the world, although she acknowledged that “sustainability is not yet really integrated”.

The doctor and agricultural engineer and professor of the department of economics and social sciences Olga Moreno called for a change in the architecture of choice that pushes us to buy certain foods in the markets, “in our daily lives we are pushed to choose between A or B, so we should be directed towards sustainable products and they should be promoted, with reliable easy to read labels, that help us in make quick decisions, that is, that  what is sustainable is easily eligible and economical” she claimed while appealing to society’s responsibility.

And finally, Inmaculada Sanfeliu spoke about Intercitrus, phytosanitary defense, research with CRISPer and the promotion so demanded by the sector. She exposed the example of ZUVamesa as a paradigm of sustainability, an example in these energetic, environmental issues of zero waste, etc. that arose “from the need to promote a promotion industry for citrus fruits that cannot go to the fresh market.” Sanfeliu recalled that “the citrus sector ranks third in the Valencian Community, where one out of every four oranges exported in the world are Spanish, and more than 70% of the citrus trade is made from the Valencian Community, with 175,000 trucks leaving each year, 307,000 ha. or the equivalent of 330,000 soccer fields that would absorb between 1’7 million tons of CO2” he concluded.