BIOVEGEN participates in the blog of the Biotechnology Communicators Association (Comunicabiotec) with the article “Agrobiotechnology: agriculture and R&D, keys for the transformation and strengthening of Spain”
The health emergency caused by COVID-19 has dealt a tremendous blow to economic activity and Spanish society. The pandemic has completely disrupted the normal functioning of the country, highlighting the -already existing- structural deficiencies in our economic and social fabric: low levels of investment in innovation and training, an economy too focused on the tertiary and service sectors, a landscape of small companies with difficulties in growing, low efficiency of productive factors, among other significant imbalances.
This scenario underscores the great importance of agriculture and R&D as essential tools for society to overcome the challenges arising from the health crisis, such as the increase in demand for food products while ensuring their supply.
The agri-food sector is strategic and of great social, territorial, economic, and environmental importance. The agri-food value chain, which includes production, transformation, and marketing, generates more than 9% of the Gross Domestic Product and contributes to the generation of more than 12% of total employment in the Spanish economy. Furthermore, Spain ranks as the fourth largest exporter of agri-food products in the European Union, contributing 9.4% of total exports. These exports represent sales figures of 49,502 million euros (16.9% of total exports of the Spanish economy), while imports of agri-food products reach 37,384 million euros (11.4% of the total goods imported nationally). Thus, the sector shows a commercial surplus of 12,118 million euros.
Agriculture faces new challenges that are determined by the demographic increase that will raise the demand for raw materials, by consumption preferences, by environmental and legal aspects, and by aspects related to the globalization of the economy. Overcoming these challenges requires an increase in efficiency (higher productivity with fewer inputs), quality (nutritional, organoleptic), and sustainability (lower environmental impact, waste reuse, etc.) in agriculture, which can only be achieved through the application of new technological developments.
The knowledge generated in Applied Plant Biology offers a set of strategic technologies (bioinformatics, genomic editing techniques, agrobiologicals for nutrition and plant protection, revaluation of waste and circular economy, new plant sources for protein extraction…) that will address global challenges (productivity, sustainability, quality) facing the agri-food sector.
Therefore, agriculture, as an essential sector that has not halted its activity and has ensured the supply of all types of agri-food products, along with R&D+i, which provides high added value solutions based on knowledge and technology, generating qualified jobs that are less dependent on physical presence, stand out for their economic and social relevance, proving indispensable to face current and future challenges.
From BIOVEGEN, as an association of companies and R&D centers in plant production, we are committed to technology and will continue to promote R&D and public-private cooperation as a tool for competitive development of the agri-food sector, and as a tool for well-being for Spanish society.