SIGPAC or Geographic Information System of Agricultural Parcels, is the name that an application that belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment of Spain receives, which would be in charge of locating geographically within Spain all those parcels that have been declared by the ranchers and farmers in any benefit regime, and which are related to the area that is used by the breeding animals or that are cultivated by the farmers.
In Spain there is a body that serves as a coordinator and which depends on the aforementioned ministry, in addition to this there are also a series of competent bodies assigned to each autonomous community, which are in charge of updating and maintaining the system. According to SIGPAC, it is the responsibility of each member state to have a graphical and digitized database of each of the farm plots, which facilitates the geographic identification of the declared plots.
The objectives of SIGPAC are very varied and among them it is possible to highlight the following:
- Make it much easier for farmers to make requests, through the production of graphic supports that are required to prepare surface declarations. Similarly, it streamlines the task of administrative controls, and this is due to the fact that digital information will allow the administration to more efficiently locate the origin of errors that are derived from the statements made by farmers or, failing that, produced in the recording of data, likewise said digitized information also serves as documentary support to resolve doubtful cases that have arisen as a result of these controls.
- It allows greater ease in the controls carried out in the field, making the task of locating the plots much easier and faster, which gives the possibility of carrying out short visits, both in the remote sensing controls and in the classic controls.
This system has a mosaic of digital orthophotos that encompass the entire territory of Spain, on which the plans of the rustic cadastre plots are initially superimposed, that is, for each specific reference, the system automatically grants the Image on the screen of the plot on which you are working, allowing it to be printed on paper.
