Interprofessional organisations

One of the main goals of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is to make agricultural production more responsive to market needs. This means making intervention mechanisms more flexible so that agricultural supply can be better matched to demand through market measures. In fact, the new reality of increasingly open agri-food markets makes it necessary to regulate instruments of collaboration and coordination between the various players in the agri-food chain to make them more efficient and transparent. Interprofessional organizations are a way of propelling these processes.

On the other hand, Article 103.1 of the Spanish Constitution states that the public authorities shall attend to the modernization and development of all economic sectors and, in particular, agriculture, livestock and fisheries.

The agri-food interprofessional organisations have undergone significant development in other Member States of the European Union which are among the most competitive in their production structure, taking shape as bodies for the coordination and collaboration of the different sectors of the agri-food system. Agri-food interprofessional organisations are particularly important for achieving the objectives of a quality policy and must be an effective instrument in its development.

In Spain, it is Law 38/1994 of 30 December 1994 which regulates interprofessional agri-food organizations. And for agri-food interprofessional organizations in the field of fruit and vegetables, the provisions of Title III of Council Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 of 28 October 1996 on the common organization of the market in fruit and vegetables also apply.