Food Information and Control Agency

The Food Information and Control Agency (Spanish: Agencia de Información y Control Alimentarios, AICA) is the Spanish Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food agency responsible for managing the information and control systems of the olericulture, dairy and other markets that the Ministry determines; the control of compliance with the Food Chain Improvement Act of 2013 and the official control of Protected Designations of Origin and Geographical Indications whose territorial scope extends to more than one autonomous community, before the commercialization.[3]

Food Information and Control Agency
Agencia de Información y Control Alimentarios
Logotype
Agency overview
FormedAugust 2, 2013 (2013-08-02)
JurisdictionSpain
HeadquartersMadrid,  Spain
Employees68 (2019)[1]
Annual budget€ 6.3 million, 2019[2]
Agency executive
  • Gema Hernández Maroñas, Director
Parent agencyMinistry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Websitewww.aica.gob.es

History

The AICA was created by the First Additional Provision of the Food Chain Improvement Act of 2013. This law designated the AICA as the direct successor of the Agency for Olive Oil (AAO) and it assigned it to the Department of Agriculture through the General Secretariat for Agriculture and Food.[4] However, this agency was not just focus on the olive oil industry, but in other food industries. The agency began to perform his de facto functions on January 1, 2014[5] and its internal rules were approved in April 2014.[3]

Organization chart

The Agency is structured through an executive body and an advisory body:[3]

  • The executive body of the agency is the Director of the Food Information and Control Agency. The director has the rank of deputy director-general and he or she heads the agency and, as such, it directs and represents it.[3]
    • The Secretary-General, responsible for the management of human resources, internal regime, legal regime, financial and economic regime and the management and maintenance of the State Register of Good Commercial Practices in Food Contracting.[6]
    • The Technical Unit for Market Information and Inspection, which is responsible for obtaining data and its analysis and processing, as well as the planning and execution of the controls and the evaluation of its results.[6]
    • The Technical Unit for Monitoring the Chain, which is responsible for monitoring, evaluation and control of food contracts and commercial practices in the food chain, as well as the promotion of fair business practices.[6]
  • The advisory body is the Advisory Council, a collective organ composed by representatives from the General State Administration, from the Autonomous Communities and from those actors of the food chain who are interested, including consumers.[3]
    • The Chairperson of the Advisory Council is the Secretary-General for Agriculture and Food and the Deputy Chair is the Director-General for the Food Industry, both officials from the Ministry.
    • Among the members of the council, there is the director of the Agency and representatives from the departments of Agriculture, Economy, Finance, from the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition, from the National Commission on Markets and Competition and from cooperatives, associations and other social organizations, of the autonomous communities and of the Spanish Council on Consumers and Users.

List of directors

Since the agency's creation in 2013, only two persons have held the position of director:

  1. José Miguel Herrero (2014–2018)[7]
  2. Gema Hernández Maroñas (2018–)[8]

References
  1. "Resolution of September 25, 2019, of the Food Information and Control Agency, which publishes the annual accounts for the year 2018 and the audit report". www.boe.es. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  2. "AICA Annual Report 2018" (PDF). Retrieved 8 March 2020.
  3. "Royal Decree 227/2014, of April 4, which approves the Statute of the Information and Food Control Agency". boe.es. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  4. "Law 12/2013, of August 2, on measures to improve the functioning of the food chain". www.boe.es. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  5. "Nueva Agencia de Información y Control Alimentario: José Miguel Herrero se perfila como director". www.olimerca.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  6. "Nuestra estructura". www.aica.gob.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  7. "Jose Miguel Herrero, nombrado director de la Agencia de Información y Control Alimentario". Master Agroalimentario (MGEA) (in Spanish). 2013-11-12. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
  8. Press, Europa (2018-07-19). "Gema Hernández, nueva directora de la Agencia de Información y Control Alimentarios". www.europapress.es. Retrieved 2020-03-08.
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