**4. The importance of science and technology in the bioeconomy**

Overcoming the challenges we have described for the bioeconomy will be possible with the accumulation of knowledge in different scientific areas, and its transformation into innovations applied to each of the areas that comprise the bioeconomy.

The improvement in the efficiency of the processes that make up agri-food production will be one of the essential elements. Implementation of the eco-blueprint rethinking all the productive, organizational, and logistic processes to reduce the quantity of inputs, which is proposed for the application of the circular economy [20], thereby achieving a balance between productivity and sustainability—will require the integration of knowledge from different areas:

• The areas of biology and biotechnology are essential for the development of new genetic materials for use in arable and livestock farming. The selection and crossing of materials will become much more precise and faster with the sequencing of complete genomes, the use of bioinformatics tools, or the editing of genes. This will allow responses to the joint challenges of productivity, resistance to drought, diseases, and pests, improved efficiency in the use of nutrients, and enrichment of food in certain components of interest. Knowledge of the microbiomes of the soil or the digestive tract of animals will improve the efficiency of the use of fertilizers, water, and feed ingredients, or improve the immune response of plants or animals. These same technologies, as well as nanotechnology, will also be applied to agrifood processing. The European Court of Justice issued a ruling in which it equates, for the EU, the techniques of gene editing with those of genetic modification. A

decision of this type, if it is not modified, could inhibit the scientific development in Europe in the coming years, making it difficult to advance in this field.


The aforementioned technological development is fully applicable to the sector of the production and transformation of forest resources. In Spain, there is a tendency to consider that the exploitation of forest resources entails a loss of natural capital and associated environmental services. This vision of the conservation of the environment has manifested itself in the preparation of the Spanish Bioeconomy Strategy [21]. As a result of this, the Juntos por los bosques initiative has arisen [22] that tries to install in Spanish society the concept that where there is forest management with sustainability criteria, the biomass, and therefore the sequestration of carbon, increases, thereby maintaining an economic activity and the preservation of the forests. This group defends the use of forest-based biomass as a unique opportunity to reduce the fire risk, create jobs, mitigate climate change, and reduce the dependence on external energy.

Spain has almost 6000 km of coasts. If we leave tourism aside, the traditional use of the marine environment has focused on the extractive fishing industry. Aquaculture has developed slowly, and the extraction of algae for different purposes (to obtain active ingredients, animal feed, or human food) is incipient. The Blue Growth initiative [6, 23] identified other opportunities linked to marine biotechnology (understood as the exploration and exploitation of marine organisms in order to create new products), as well as other areas far from the bioeconomy such as ocean energy or the mineral exploitation of the seabed.

Paredes [24] grouped biomass conversion technologies into: biological (based on techniques of anaerobic digestion, fermentation, and enzymatic hydrolysis), mechanical (such as densification, extraction, and pressing), chemical (transesterification), and thermochemical (carbonization, combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis). However, this author pointed out that the main technological pathways for biomass research include: combustion, gasification, cogeneration, pyrolysis, transesterification, fermentation-hydrolysis, and anaerobic digestion. The foresight document of SCAR [17] also explored these issues.

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*The Bioeconomy: An Opportunity for the Spanish Economy*

regional, and national administrations.

coastal development perspective, led to its integration.

consultation.

In 2014, the process of drafting the Spanish Bioeconomy Strategy began. It ended at the end of 2015, the strategy becoming public in early 2016. The essential

• Analysis of the opportunity to develop the Bioeconomy Strategy, within the framework of the National Ministry of Research, Development, and Innovation.

• Agreement to initiate the work by the ministries involved (economy and competitiveness; agriculture, food, and environment; and energy, industry, and tourism), and the start-up of a working group with representatives from the three ministries, the scientific and business worlds, and technological platforms.

• Preparation of a first draft of documents, and their distribution and discussion among economic sectors and representatives of society, research, and local,

• Preparation and adoption of the final document, after submitting it to public

The definition of bioeconomy included in the document appears in the introduction to this chapter, as do its objectives. It is important to refer to some specificities of this strategy, which were widely discussed throughout the elaboration process, such as the scope, the bases, the particularities of Spain, and the essential elements. The scope of the strategy is included in the definition: agri-food, forest production and marine resources, residual biomass, and bioproducts. The importance given to each of these areas is proportional to the specific weight that each currently has in the Spanish economy, with the proviso that the transformation of biomass into bioproducts and bioenergy should be an important objective since it was a field of activity that was still under development. From certain points of view, it was considered that agri-food should be excluded from both the concept and the scope, in the same way as in other European strategies that were being worked on. Subsequently, the same decision was made in some of the Spanish regional strategies. However, the agreement that it was necessary to address the production and transformation of all biological resources in an integral manner, from a rural and

The basis of this integration determined that foods were considered first, using productive methods based on efficiency and sustainability. Therefore, from the very beginning, the need to prioritize the use of agricultural and marine resources to provide food was considered, suggesting that the raw material for biorefineries should be the residual biomass of the agricultural industries. It was understood that the use of natural and biological resources is an economic decision of their owners. However, it was considered also that, as a principle, priority should be given to the alimentary use of agricultural products, as against the current European policy that promotes first-generation biofu-

els. Today, this policy has been changed, as a consequence of public opinion.

Another founding principle was the requirement to give efficiency and sustainability—economic, social, and environmental—the same level of importance. There were two reasons for this: the first was related to the social perception in Europe of the bioeconomy, meaning that the European strategy had been launched thinking especially about the efficiency of the use of biological resources. This had provoked a reaction of rejection in certain groups that believed that behind the strategy, there was an interest in depleting forest resources. The second was the assurance that the future

milestones of this process, as it has been reported [1], were the following:

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84917*

**5. The Spanish bioeconomy strategy**
