MADRID, 21 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The royal decree that develops the registry of digital food contracts in which the contracts signed with primary producers and their groups must be registered, on a mandatory basis, will enter into force this Thursday after its publication this Wednesday in the Bulletin State official (BOE).
In this way, the Government launches said registry in compliance with the law on measures to improve the operation of the food chain, approved in December 2021.
This registry increases the protection of primary producers and their groups, since it will facilitate the inspection and control functions of the Food Information and Control Agency (AICA) and the execution authorities of the autonomous communities, in charge of ensuring compliance of the obligations regarding the food chain within the scope of its powers.
In this way, according to Luis Planas's department, greater legal certainty of commercial relations and a more efficient structuring of the value chain are achieved.
In this framework, the royal decree clarifies who are the subjects obligated to register the food contracts that, according to the chain law, corresponds to the buyers who formalize the contracts with the primary producers and their groups.
It also specifies the registration procedure, which will be intuitive and simple, and which must be carried out before the delivery of the products that are the subject of the contract, as well as when there are modifications to the contract agreed by both parties.
Likewise, the norm clarifies that those obliged to register the contract will be the first buyers when they purchase raw milk from farmers. For those food contracts formalized as integration contracts, as in the case of fattening productions in the poultry sector, the integrator will be obliged to register it in the electronic registry.
The registry will depend organically on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and will be attached to the Food Information and Control Agency.
Access will be made through the AICA website from the link that will be enabled for access when the royal decree enters into force this Thursday.
However, and in order to guarantee the operability of the electronic application of the registry and ensure that the operators have margin to dispose of the necessary resources, the regulation clarifies that the registration of food contracts can be carried out from next January 31 of 2023, although it will not be mandatory until June 30, 2023.
