The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, has pointed out that the reform of the food chain law, which entered into force in December 2021, is ambitious at the level of the European Union and is a clear example of the exercise of transparency on trade relations that was requested a few days ago by the plenary of the Observatory of the Food Chain. The law of the chain works and the Government is committed, along with the work of the autonomous communities, for its compliance, he has stressed.
In the inaugural act of the Advisory Council of the Food Information and Control Agency (AICA), the minister added that this transparency and security for primary producers will also be enhanced thanks to the new digital record of contracts, in which the operator who buys from producers or their groups must register each contract and, if they occur, its subsequent modifications.
The reform introduced important improvements to avoid situations of abuse, establishing the price of products along the chain, with special emphasis on the weakest link, that of primary producers. In addition, with the modification of the law of the chain, it is committed to modernizing commercial relations to make them more fair, balanced and transparent, by fixing, for example, the obligatory nature of the written contract above 1,000 euros.
The AICA, whose work has been highlighted by the minister, has presented at the first meeting of the Advisory Council this year its activity report for 2022, which concludes that during the past year it has imposed 272 sanctions for non-compliance with Law 12/2013, on measures to improve the functioning of the food chain, modified in December 2021 (Law 16/2021).
Luis Planas has congratulated the work of the AICA and has indicated that the number of sanctions shows that infringements only represent a minimal part of the actions in the sector. In his opinion, during the 14 months that the reform of the chain law has been in force, the application of this regulation has been very positive and has promoted the principles of trust and legality that must govern commercial relations in a leading sector of the Spanish economy such as agri-food.
COLLABORATION WITH THE AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES
The meeting of the Advisory Council of the AICA was chaired by the Secretary General of Agriculture and Food, Fernando Miranda, and included representatives of production, industry and agri-food distribution, as well as control officers from other ministries and autonomous bodies.
One of the novelties of this meeting has been the presentation of the control activity of the autonomous communities, which have had a multiplier effect on the inspection activity and also on the improvement of the food chain as a whole. Thus, in the past year, within the scope of their competences, they carried out 549 ex officio inspections and controlled 2,029 trade relations ex officio.
It should be recalled that in February 2022 the constitution of the cooperation committee of the implementing authorities was formalized. The work and recommendations of this committee are the guarantee that the collaboration between autonomous communities will bear the best fruits to carry out a uniform application and control in all territories.
On February 21, the AICA published through its website the list of the 69 companies that committed serious or very serious infractions with the reason and amount of each firm sanction, either administratively or judicially, as required by this regulation.
In its last annual report, the AICA has indicated that over the past year it has initiated 172 sanction files and that the sanctions imposed amount to 272, of which 53% correspond to infringements due to non-compliance with payment deadlines, especially by wholesale companies and agri-food industries.
The rest of the sanctions are due to other breaches of the legal framework, such as the lack of a contract, the non-inclusion of the price in the contract or the destruction of the value of the food chain. By sector, 109 of the sanctions relate to fruit and vegetables, 68 to wine and eight to dairy.
COMPLAINTS AND CONTROLS
Throughout 2022, this body received 23 complaints of alleged breaches of the chain’s law. Once again, the fruit and vegetable sector has the highest number of complaints (15), followed by dairy (3), wine (2) and olive oil, table olives and nuts, which account for one each.
The AICA has also carried out 929 ex officio controls in 2022 that have covered 1,487 commercial relations between operators in the food chain. Mainly, it has investigated commercial transactions in fruit and vegetables (29.4%), the meat sector (21%) - with special dedication in the poultry sector -, the wine sector, as well as table olives and nuts.
Since the entry into force of the amendment of the food chain law in December 2021, this body has undertaken a total of 7,638 actions, of which 2,487 were aimed at verifying the existence of contracts and 5,151 if commercial abusive practices occurred.
DIGITAL RECORD OF CONTRACTS
Law 16/2021, amending the law of the food chain, introduced the creation of a digital record of contracts that is already operational since January 31, 2023. The registration in the digital register is now voluntary, but it will be mandatory from next June 30 before the delivery of the product under contract. The registry is a repository of documents of a digital and confidential nature. It has no informative or statistical purposes and its data are not subject to exploitation.
The activity reports can be consulted at the following link: