García Tejerina advances that MAPAMA will lead a Working Group on Digital Transformation in Agriculture

The Minister Isabel García Tejerina has advanced that MAPAMA will lead a Working Group on Digitization and Big Data in agriculture, in the course of its intervention in the II Forum on Digital Transformation and Big Data in Agriculture, which was held on the 8th November in Madrid and has gathered more than 400 attendees. As reported by the minister, the purpose of this initiative is to address the needs of the sector and the rural environment to meet the technical, economic, training and legislative challenges of the digital transformation.

García Tejerina has indicated that the Group will be composed of representatives of the various links in the chain, of administrations and the field of technology and knowledge and warns that the deadline for submission of applications to be part is open until November 10th

This Group will begin work on November 23th and, among other tasks, will be responsible for finding innovative solutions that Big Data and digitalization can offer to take advantage of market opportunities and promote the development of “smart villages”, from a rural environment connected to attract young people and women to agricultural activity, contributing to the generational change and maintenance of rural populations.

Among the measures to promote the use of new technologies that are being implemented by the central government, García Tejerina has also highlighted the strategy of rural modernization and diversification that the Ministry is developing, focusing on women and young people in rural areas, where Emphasizes Innovation and Digitization.

The minister has informed that the funds destined to the State Plan of Broadband (PEBA), to the Plan of satellite coverage and to the Plan of fixed access to 30 megawatts to populations of municipalities of less than one thousand inhabitants are increasing

With all of them, García Tejerina pointed out, we hope to universalize the deployment of fiber optics and 4G coverage in rural areas.

García Tejerina has shown her conviction that digitization and automation will be fundamental for the present and future of agriculture and the rural environment. The new technologies, she pointed out, will promote greater efficiency and competitiveness in the entire food chain, through precision agriculture, robotics, automation, satellites or the use of drones and other instruments that improve yields and perform better use of our water and energy resources

She has also valued its role in increasing economic sustainability throughout the production and environmental chain, facilitating the transition to a circular economy.

In the field of food, she highlighted the usefulness of the Internet and big data to provide consumers with more information, with which they can maintain an interaction, receiving information on the offer of products they find, which will allow them to better identify and faster new trends.

For García Tejerina, “we are facing a new imminent technological revolution for the agricultural sector, which will lead to a more sustainable and productive agriculture, thanks to the combined use of new technologies and ICTs. That is why we want the Spanish agricultural sector to be able to anticipate this revolution and incorporate these technologies as soon as possible“.

Reference forum in digital transformation

The second edition of the AGRIDATA SUMMIT forum, held at CaixaForum Madrid, has consolidated this event as a must for professionals in Digitalization and Big Data.

During the opening round table, Gonzalo Martín, CEO of Bynse, highlighted “the importance of generating and recording data in order to organize, classify and cross them for the management and rational decision-making based on Big Data“. For his part, the head of the agricultural organization COAG, Miguel Padilla, has claimed “the need for digital transformation is something accessible to all farms and ranchers, regardless of size or size,” which is why from your organization Innovation is prioritized as an area of strategic and priority action, ensuring that in the next five years the digitalization in the agricultural sector will experience a very significant acceleration process.

The inaugural session also featured a videoconference intervention by the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, who has advocated a digital transformation to promote prosperity in rural areas and provide farmers and rural businesses with tools to produce more using less.

Phil Hogan: “the single digital market has the potential to contribute 415 billion euros to the European economy through jobs, competition and investment in innovation, including rural areas, which could help close the digital divide”

In his speech, the CEO of Freshtrategy, David del Pino, stressed that “the size to compete globally in the distribution of food has increased exponentially, Walmart wants to become Amazon, before Amazon becomes Wallmart”, concluding that the trend points towards “a biotechnological, hyper-technological and hyperconnected world”.

Representing the cooperative sector, Agustín Herrero, general director of Agri-food Cooperatives, has indicated that “there is a lot of digital technology already implemented in sectors such as fruits and vegetables, wine and some of the farmers, but, without a doubt, it is the appearance of the applications apps on mobile phones and the reduction of costs in sensors and data capture and processing systems, which will really allow digitalization to spread to other sectors that have traditionally been less technified”. For its part, and providing a more practical point of view, representatives of the cooperative group DCOOP and the cooperative TROPS, have explained how they are applying the new technologies in their respective companies and which are the uses in which there is more potential for development.

From the University of Córdoba, pioneers in making this digital transformation a reality through its research groups, Alfonso García-Ferrer, director of the department of graphic engineering and geomatics of the ETSIAM (University of Córdoba) has assured that “his university strongly bets to facilitate that students can acquire the necessary digital skills, to be able to offer a professional profile according to what a highly technified sector needs “.

With a hopeful and optimistic vision, José Luis Estrella, general director of Hispatec, has highlighted that “the sector is moving forward in a positive way and with hope knowing that there is also a lot of work to be done and, therefore, the specialization of the solutions and suppliers in the agricultural sector, understand the processes and idiosyncrasy of the sector, get away from bubbles and excessive media noise, and demand that a tangible and measurable value be contributed with the digitalization “.

In the second edition of the Agridata Summit forum, in addition to BynseAgridataServices and the Coordinator of Organizations of Farmers and Cattle Ranchers (COAG) have joined as organizers Hispatec, ETSIAM of the University of Córdoba and Cooperatives Agro-alimentary of Spain. This event has also had the sponsorship of such important companies as AgroBank, Adama, Fendt, IBM, YARA and Accenture.

Source: MAPAMA

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