After an exhaustive analysis of the reality of the Catalan fruit sector, Afrucat estimates the sector must invest 370 million euro in the next 5 years to develop the priority investments it must undertake if it wants to be competitive, efficient, resilient, and to ensure market leadership.
The association has grouped all these investment lines and integrated them into a project called Next Fruit Generation.
The Next Fruit Generation project was born with the objective of aligning these future needs of fruit growing with the investment levers defined in the European funds for recovery-Next Generation and is structured in 6 pillars/areas of investment.
The pillars of Afrucat's Next Fruit Generation are:
Renewable energy sources
Digitization
Productivity
Resilience
Social integration
Climate change
Each of these 6 main pillars is led by an emblematic project:
Renewable energy
This line of action aims to achieve the sector's energy autonomy by creating an interconnected energy association of fruit companies, investing in photovoltaic energy.
Digitization
The goal is to integrate the entire chain (central/ field/ store) through Big Data technology in FruitMonitor, a single online and on-time monitor that would allow its users to make agile and documented decisions.
Productivity
The goal is to improve efficiency and productivity in all links of the chain through robotization and automation of harvest/ pruning/ thinning activities and automation in processing plants.
Resilience
Promoting the global implementation of anti-frost networks and systems to assure production isn't affected by inclement weather.
Social integration
Fight against the exclusion of male and female workers with the creation of new homes and the implementation of the Anti-Harassment Detection Plan.
Climate change
Adapting to climate change by developing new varieties that are productive and competitive in the future edaphoclimatic conditions of Catalonia.
Productivity would require 38% of the funds, climate change 26%, renewable energies and resilience 19% each, digitization 6%, and social integration 3%.
Strategic levers
The lines of action of the Next Fruit Generation project are in line with the following strategic levers defined in the European funds for recovery-Next Generation:
Urban agenda, depopulation, and agriculture
Resilient infrastructures and ecosystems
Just and inclusive energy transition
Modernization and digitization of companies
New economy of citizens, employment
It would involve the ministries of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge; Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation; Industry; Labor and Social Economy; Science and Innovation; and Agriculture.
For more information:
Afrucat
C/ Corregidor Escofet, 64
25005 Lleida (España)
Tel.: +34 626 203 471
www.afrucat.com