The protests of farmers in our country and throughout Europe is putting on the table these weeks a reality that is as obvious as it is worrying: the agricultural sector needs viable, sustainable and profitable solutions for producers and, of course, regulations and a bureaucracy that facilitates the already complex work of people dedicated to the field, without neglecting food safety and quality.
This is also what we think at MAFA. And this is confirmed by our CEO, José Carlos Sánchez Gálvez, who states that “sustainable agriculture needs innovative solutions, consensus and less bureaucracy”. “Unfortunately we are experiencing a legal vacuum that, together with the problems that the sector has been experiencing due to the lack of legal consensus and regulations that are not entirely well defined, means that producers of biosolutions for crops are also sometimes ‘tied in their feet and hands’ to continue researching and generating inputs that respond to the needs imposed by the climate emergency and the need to feed a growing world population. We need a stable, consensual regulatory framework that can be reviewed if it does not adjust to the reality of the moment,” he maintains.
As a company dedicated for more than 50 years to creating products that solve the needs of crops, we believe that public-private collaboration is essential to establish the regulatory frameworks for Spanish and European agriculture. As high a priority, in fact, as contemplating in these regulations the role that technology and innovation must continue to play if we want agriculture to truly have a future.
The European Green Deal is necessary today more than ever, but it needs to be reviewed and completed with farmers, who know better than anyone what the countryside is currently facing and what can be applied in their daily lives.
José Carlos Sánchez Gálvez, CEO of MAFA.
“Bureaucracy and legal loopholes cannot continue to suffocate agriculture,” comments the CEO of MAFA, who regrets that the European Union withdrew the plan to reduce pesticides by 50% right at the beginning of the push. “All of us who are dedicated to generating biological solutions for the countryside, to researching natural and non-toxic alternatives for crops, believe to a greater or lesser extent that this slowness in authorizing the products that 21st century agriculture needs is greatly harming the sector and, above all, the producers, who are witnessing at the same time how legislation on chemical substances is becoming increasingly strict,” says Sánchez Gálvez. He recalls a relevant fact: in the last 7 years, more than 100 types of products of chemical origin have been stopped and barely half of biocontrol products have been incorporated into agricultural practices.
And the result? Agricultural producers are completely misplaced today, and it is normal for them to feel ‘alone’ in the face of a reality that they do not know how to manage. They cannot fight pests or diseases with the old products, but they also do not have those biosolutions that they intend to implement and that are not completely regulated by the EU. “It is also important that there is clear and decisive communication and training by the institutions for them, who need to know what solutions exist and are being developed and how to implement them on their farms,” indicates José Carlos Sánchez.
Biostimulants, prebiotics and probiotics, biofertilizers… They are the ‘tools’ of agriculture in the coming decades, an agriculture capable of ensuring food production with optimal food security. “That is why it is also a priority that quality and food sustainability be required for both European products and those from third countries that the European population consumes.”
“The sustainable agriculture that we all want and need cannot wait any longer. A clear, feasible, balanced regulatory framework is urgently needed. And, above all, that it addresses once and for all the reality that worries farmers.”
