The Agrobiotech Innovation Forum extends its most sincere condolences to the victims of the Toledo accident and its support to their families.
The Agrobiotech Innovation Forum extends its most sincere condolences to the victims of the Toledo accident and its support to their families.
For Agri-food Innovation and Modernisation
The holding of the Agrobiotech Innovation Forum 2026 (hereinafter AGROBIOTECH) in the city of Lleida comes at a time of extreme geopolitical change and environmental vulnerabilities unprecedented in modern rural history. This Declaration is born as a firm response to these major challenges, with the aim of safeguarding the agro-industrial system by achieving food sovereignty based on soil resilience, regional technological independence and global ecosystem efficiency.
Climate change and the new requirements of the European Union —such as the directives of the Regulation on the sustainable use of plant protection products and the sector’s decarbonisation commitments— should not be understood as insurmountable barriers, but as a highly urgent catalyst. The forum’s unifying premise, ‘Optimising production without compromising the planet’, stands as the guiding strategic principle.
In this context, Catalonia must be connected to the guidelines that are shaping the European and global bioeconomy today. The IACGB Communiqué 2026, the Global Bioeconomy Vision 2040 and Dublin Goals and the new 2025 European Bioeconomy Strategy all point in the same direction: industrial transformation, sustainability and shared prosperity. The Catalan Bioeconomy Strategy 2030 and its 2nd Action Plan 2025–2027 provide Catalonia’s own basis for translating these guidelines into the needs of each territory and turning them into decisions, investments and results.
The agricultural sector is immersed in a biotechnological revolution driven by the evolution of pests and water stress. The presentations concluded that the agricultural transition depends on adopting genome editing as a key tool to solve structural problems in crops that are fundamental to the Catalan economy, such as rice in the delta areas and alfalfa and other forage legumes in inland irrigated land, among others. Genome editing makes it possible to create highly resilient varieties, drastically reducing the use of chemical fertilisers and commercial pesticides.
The strategy adopted by the forum establishes the framework of ‘360º Plant Health’, a paradigm in which crop monitoring holistically integrates soil microbiology, preventive biological control of species and advanced weather forecasting. Historical chemical dependence has been declared unsustainable from a regulatory and economic point of view, forcing the future of agriculture to focus on caring for the land, from the laboratory to the field soil.
The livestock vertical has formalised its definitive move towards ‘Livestock Farming 4.0’. Sensors installed on farms, automated feeders and automated biosecurity controls are no longer marginal investments, but necessary guidelines for efficient pig, poultry and beef cattle operations. Animal health has been redefined through preventive epidemiological intelligence to avoid the risk of transmission and control diseases immediately, thereby reducing the use of antibiotics and strengthening the bottom line of farms.
One of the most innovative pillars presented at the Forum is the use of complex mathematical models and predictive algorithms. These models directly help solve the serious logistical and environmental problems of the livestock sector by optimising transport routes, simulating disease outbreaks and designing ultra-personalised feeding programmes according to the animals’ biometrics and age.
The bioeconomy can no longer be understood as a secondary recycling activity or as a purely environmental policy. It is a driver for transforming production systems towards new bio-based value chains, capable of reducing dependence on fossil resources, generating high-value materials and products, and strengthening competitiveness and territorial development. Catalonia has biological resources, knowledge, technology and a business fabric, but the challenge is to turn this potential into investment, production facilities, new industry and quality jobs. To this end, the conditions must be created so that the bio-industry wants to, and is able to, establish itself and grow in the country.
This transformation requires stable public policies and a roadmap shared with the business community and civil society. Legal certainty, administrative simplification and coordination between administrations. In addition, suitable infrastructure and land are needed, along with financing mechanisms that facilitate the step from research and pilot plants to commercial industrial facilities. Markets for bio-products must also be developed, with conditions and certifications based on quality, safety and performance. Initiatives such as the Catalan Nutrient Platform are an example of an enabling mechanism. Cooperation between companies, knowledge centres, administrations through innovative public procurement and territories, also at interregional and international level, will be essential to drive this deployment.
AGROBIOTECH has taken the lead in analysing regenerative agriculture, positioning it as the main vehicle for the agricultural and ecological transformation of the territory. The old debate pitting environmental protection against productivism must be firmly overcome, by showing with empirical data that healthy soil, rich in organic matter and microbiologically active, is far more resilient to the extreme effects of climate change and delivers stable, higher-quality yields in the long term.
The scientific evidence presented at the forum shows that regenerative agriculture practices —such as permanent cover crops, minimal mechanical soil disturbance, complex crop rotation and the integration of livestock— restore fundamental ecosystem services, acting as effective carbon sinks and drastically improving the capacity of rural aquifers to absorb and retain rainwater.
The deployment of applications based on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics has been defined as the greatest operational transformation of the sector since the mechanisation of the last century. Agro-Robotics took shape at this edition of the forum through demonstrations of autonomous, precision application of plant protection products and fertilisers. These are technologies that eliminate human error and reduce product use by up to 40% thanks to sensors that only apply treatment where they detect green leaves or fruit.
In addition, flexible gripper technologies for handling robots are paving the way towards the automated harvesting of stone fruit and delicate vegetables, a segment traditionally dependent on scarce seasonal labour. The sector unanimously analysed the barriers and frictions in robot adoption. The high cost of capital investment, the lack of interoperability standards in management platforms for heterogeneous robots and the need for advanced technological training were identified as the main obstacles to adopting these systems in real field conditions.
An effective instrument, present at AGROBIOTECH, for closing the gap between research and the market is participation in the AgrifoodTEF programme, the European network of Testing and Experimentation Facilities for innovation in the agri-food sector 2024-2027. It is a project co-financed by the EU and the Ministry of Agriculture to apply artificial intelligence and robotics in this field. This project helps make infrastructure and services available to small and medium-sized enterprises to evaluate solutions in real environments. It is not just modernisation: it is about gaining efficiency, reducing environmental impact and strengthening competitiveness.
At the same time, applied Artificial Intelligence is being used as a tool to free farmers from red tape. The emergence of “AI that works for you” applications allows data from field notebooks, invoicing and plant protection controls to be generated and verified almost automatically, giving farmers back time to devote themselves exclusively to managing production.
Aligning the agri-food ecosystem with the European Green Agenda requires strict regulatory control and market-based financial mechanisms that encourage environmental performance. The forum analysed the combined impact of the new European regulatory framework, centred on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the pioneering EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which will require all algorithms used for high-impact agronomic decision-making to be audited, ensuring there is no bias in the allocation of resources or the granting of aid.
In parallel, a major opportunity for immediate financing has been identified through Energy Saving Certificates (CAE). The Energy Transition Offices are working directly with farmers and cooperatives to help them monetise their investments in energy efficiency. Investments in high-efficiency electric irrigation motors, advanced thermal insulation of livestock buildings and improved performance of climate control systems become direct economic credits that feed into the farm’s accounts.
Catalonia’s agri-energy transition found its epicentre in the AGROBIOTECH debates. The concept of the ‘agri-food–energy binomial’ has been consolidated as an inseparable strategic vector. The agri-energy transition is a relevant component of the bioeconomy, but it does not exhaust its potential. Biogas infrastructure and digestate valorisation must be integrated into value chains that prioritise the efficient, cascading use of biological resources, respecting soil quality, water availability and the regenerative capacity of ecosystems.
Catalonia has the opportunity to promote bio-industrial parks, biorefineries and other facilities that connect local resources with processing companies, replicating existing cases where horizontal cooperation among dozens of livestock farmers has made it possible to create shared slurry treatment plants to generate clean energy and biofertilisers, stabilising energy costs for the whole group and creating value in rural areas. Shared infrastructure and cooperation models with the primary sector that generate investment, new activity and economic returns for the territory must be encouraged.
Likewise, agrivoltaics is defined as a real opportunity for economic diversification without compromising utilised agricultural area. Installing elevated solar panels over fruit orchards or vineyards physically protects crops against hail and extreme sunlight, reduces irrigation water evaporation and, at the same time, generates electricity for the self-consumption of pumping facilities, creating a double source of income highly valued by farming professionals.
The awards and recognitions granted during the forum are not isolated milestones, but the best public showcase for building a new narrative of prestige around rural activity. Institutional communication campaigns and the AGROBIOTECH INNOVATION FORUM itself show young talent that today’s primary sector is a digital, competitive, highly skilled environment with immense social value.
The Catalan rural world is a fundamental pillar of our resilience and food sovereignty and, therefore, in an environment of excellence such as AGROBIOTECH in Lleida, we call for it to be given the highest prestige, decent working conditions and territorial balance. To ensure the viability of this vital fabric, it is essential to guarantee a solid generational renewal that connects traditional experience with young talent, driving both land management and modern, sustainable and pioneering livestock farming.
In this regard, the strategic integration of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, genome editing and precision agriculture becomes the key lever for improving the comfort and quality of life of farmers, while optimising the protection of essential production factors such as agricultural soil, water and green energy. Through this technological drive and models based on the bioeconomy and regenerative agriculture, the new generation must lead the improvement of animal welfare and bio-responsibility, reaffirming that a prestigious, technologically advanced rural and livestock world with a generational future is the best guarantee for a prosperous, connected and sustainable Catalonia. At the same time, the new bioeconomy value chains must offer agricultural businesses opportunities to participate in decisions and in the value generated, income diversification and skilled employment.
The Forum calls for moving from strategies to decisions, and from investments to results.
“The commitment of the Agrobiotech Innovation Forum is firm: there can be no environmental sustainability without guaranteeing the financial viability and competitive excellence of our producers, just as the continuity of the agri-food sector cannot be ensured without absolute, science-based respect for the natural cycles and resources of planet Earth.”
Lleida, October 2026
