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Agrofood products
The Autonomous Community signs a convention to promote the organic products sector and drive sales in overseas markets.
Murcia, 5th Sept.- The counsellor for Universities, Business and Investigation, José Ballesta, has today, as president of Murcia's regional development agency (INFO), signed a collaboration agreement with the president of the Region's Council for Organic Agriculture (CAERM), David Antonio Samper, with the purpose of giving regional companies' organic production an impulse, as well as reaching international markets.
Ballesta stated that the main objective of this project, called ¿LivinBio', which brings together the regional Administration and the business sector is to position the Region of Murcia as a reference in the field of organic production "helping companies to find the right markets and providing the available resources to give an impulse to innovation in productive processes. All of this by means of one of our best tools: the INFO."
In order to achieve the goals set out, activities to promote the consumption and sale of organic produce will be designed, as well as the strengthening of the sector's image by means of digital media, training and planning, internationalisation and innovation.
The counsellor assured that supporting this sector is of utmost importance "if we want the Region to continue to lead agricultural exports and if we want to position ourselves in European markets such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Denmark where there is an increasing demand for products at competitive prices".
The figures suggest financial growth in the sector. In the year 2000 there were 400,000 hectares of land with a marketed production value of around 120 million euros whilst, a decade later, the number of hectares topped 1,650,000 and sales 700 million euros. Therefore, the rate of growth in organic agriculture has multiplied by five between the years 2000 and 2010.
The 2011 figures indicate that the sector in the Region of Murcia achieved 200 million euros in sales. Ninety percent of this is exported, the main markets being Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Denmark and Switzerland, although wine and oil are also exported to the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
The Region's Council for Organic Agriculture is a public authority which began its activity in the year 2000 as the entity responsible for applying a control system to the Region's organic agriculture.
Source: INFO