Municipal Livestock and Meat Network holds Meeting of Mayors and City Councilors

The initiative is promoted by the interprofessional organizations ASICI, AVIANZA, INTERCUN, INTEROVIC, INTERPORC and PROVACUNO, in collaboration with the FEMP.

The Secretary General for the Demographic Challenge, Francesc Xavier Boya, and the Secretary General of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, Carlos Daniel Casares, participated in the municipal dialogue meeting, together with some twenty mayors and councilors from municipalities belonging to the Network.

January 25, 2023. The Red Municipal Ganadero-Cárnica has held in Madrid the first meeting of mayors and councilors of its member municipalities, which was attended by some twenty people from municipalities such as Alcarràs (Lleida), Alerre and Binéfar (Huesca), Cabezuela and Cantimpalos (Segovia), El Viso (Córdoba), Lleida, Tarancón (Cuenca) and Totana (Murcia).

Raúl Muñiz, president of INTEROVIC, and Mª Luz de Santos, Director of INTERCUN, spoke on behalf of the six interprofessional organizations to welcome the municipal officials, and the Secretary General for the Demographic Challenge of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge also participated in the dialogue meeting, Francesc Xavier Boya, who has valued the role of industry in rural municipalities as "strategic to structure the rural environment and a great ally for the depopulation process in territories of our country"; and the Secretary General of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP), Carlos Daniel Casares, who has transferred the commitment of the organization based on the collaboration agreement signed in June 2021, highlighting the interest of the initiatives promoted by the network as "a vital element to address the growing trend of depopulation in Spain" .

At the meeting, the lines of work for 2023 were presented, as well as the Network's Constitutive Declaration, which sets out in ten points its founding objectives for developing this initiative as the best instrument for defending and promoting the shared interests of the livestock-meat chain and the local entities in which its activities are based.

The Municipal Livestock and Meat Network was born with the impulse of the six interprofessional organizations ASICI, AVIANZA, INTERCUN, INTEROVIC, INTERPORC and PROVACUNO, in collaboration with the FEMP, with the purpose of recognizing the important support of the municipalities in the development of the activity of the chain, and to become a platform for dialogue and a space for collaboration between municipalities and the sector, to face common challenges.

The Network already has twenty-five municipalities throughout Spain (Galicia, Cantabria, Aragón, Cataluña, Castilla-La Mancha, Murcia, Extremadura, Castilla y León), with another twenty in the process of joining, seeking synergies to promote the conditions that have allowed the livestock-meat value chain to become one of the most important economic and social engines of the country and to act as one of the major backbone agents of rural Spain, especially in smaller municipalities, thus helping to combat the growing depopulation of these areas.

The importance of the livestock-meat chain in the Spanish economy

The positive impact of the livestock-meat chain is also significant at the national level, where it contributes nearly 48 billion euros to the national GDP and generates 672,000 direct jobs. In addition, the activity mobilizes two million associated jobs that fall within a varied selection of activities such as agricultural production for livestock feed and professionals in the veterinary, feed, animal health, logistics and transport and ancillary industries.

Livestock activity is developed in more than 350,000 farms throughout the national geography that make a contribution of 16,500 million euros to the Final Agricultural Production, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In addition, the Spanish meat industry put on the markets in 2021 a total of 7.7 million tons of meats and 1.5 million tons of processed products worth 31,727 million euros. With this production, Spain's food sovereignty in terms of meats has been ensured and has also allowed 3.46 million tons of meats and assorted processed products to be exported to markets around the world. These transactions have reached a value of 9,107 million euros, with a 5% growth in foreign turnover and volume compared to the previous year's figures. These figures have a special strategic relevance at a time when international trade is suffering a sharp decline and where the livestock-meat chain has emerged as a guarantee for maintaining a positive balance of payments.

How to join the Network

Municipalities wishing to form part of the Municipal Livestock and Meat Network must approve an institutional declaration in favor of the meat-livestock chain and accompany this decision with a communication action. All the necessary information on the process, the purposes of the Municipal Network and the contact form are available on the platform's website.

The Municipal Network for the livestock-meat chain intends to be a reflection of the great diversity that exists in Spain. For this reason, in the medium term, its members will include localities from all geographical areas of the country, governed by political forces of all political persuasions. The initiative also takes care of demographic representativeness with the participation of municipalities of all sizes, including those with less than 5,000 inhabitants, where the positive impact of the activity is even more notable.

More information:

José Manuel Alvarez - Red Municipal Ganadero-Cárnica (Livestock and Meat Municipal Network)

646 65 28 46 - [email protected]