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During the first half of February, the Custòdia Agrària team and the San Crispín Cooperative have organized three focus groups to promote an alliance for a transition of the agricultural sector towards an agroecological and sustainable model.
The meetings have involved various agents from the administration sectors, entities and rural businesses. Another one will be held soon with agents from the marketing sectors. During the course of these meetings, shared points of view and very valuable contributions have emerged in multiple areas, so that a good part of the shared needs of the Menorcan agricultural sector on various fronts have been specified.
Administrative framework
One of the most important is the administrative one: there is a unanimous call to reduce or, at the very least, be able to better deal with the bureaucracy that is currently required. Likewise, it is requested to promote the approval of legislation that is adapted to small producers, especially in health issues. The interconnection between administrations is also considered an essential milestone to avoid the constant duplication of documents, achieve the streamlining of procedures and move towards a "single window" that centralizes bureaucratic procedures.
Field context
Another shared need is the availability of mechanical resources to facilitate work. Access to appropriate machinery, such as legume harvesters or tools for marking the Línea Clau, would improve the efficiency of the sector. A tool bank could also be very useful.
There is also a common concern to ensure the continuity of agricultural work in Menorca. In this sense, the interest in specifying ways to promote generational change has been clearly outlined, which could be a good way to offer farmers agricultural training based on the agroecological model, which registers a growing demand both from farms that want to recover agricultural activity and from the consumer market itself.
Production
Cooperation between producers and their strategic alliance is essential to improve the planning of the sector. Better coordination would allow for an increase in the production of certain foods to better cover local demand, avoid price drops due to occasional oversupply and reduce dependence on foreign countries.
However, for this to be possible, it is essential to have unified and disaggregated agricultural statistics. This is another need for the sector, which could provide clarifying data and, at the same time, identify new needs and define new strategic lines of action by the alliance.
Consumers
It is also necessary to carry out outreach work, to project the qualities of agro-ecological products to citizens, and to educate consumer demand, both individual and collective, to adapt it to the ecological and social reality of production on the island. Consequently, it will be necessary to improve the circuits to facilitate consumption, through a distribution of products that, on the one hand, makes them more conveniently accessible to consumers and, on the other, is also accessible to producers and is economically viable for them. Raising awareness among consumers of the added value of products made with sustainable management and working for public recognition of the conservation work carried out by farmers is essential to achieve these objectives.
A project in progress
The group sessions will continue soon, with an intensive workshop on March 13 and 14, which will involve all those who want to contribute to defining the alliance and which will be led by expert facilitators who will help attendees get the most out of the group work.
This process is part of the GOV4ALL project, promoted in Menorca by the GOB, the San Crispín Cooperative, Rayën Soluciones and the University of Valencia. It has the support of the European Union, through the initiative of Missió dels sòls and programa Horizon.