2023-05-11 18:37:29
Spain’s Civil Guard arrested 26 people in early May in raids on illegal wells in the Andalusia region, part of an increased crackdown on the unauthorized use of water due to a prolonged drought. KEYSTONE/AP/Bernat Armangue sda-ats
This content was published on May 11, 2023 – 20:37
(Keystone-ATS)
Faced with one of the worst droughts in the country’s recent history, the Spanish government unveiled an emergency plan of more than two billion euros on Thursday to deal with it. And help an agricultural sector in great suffering.
Adopted during an extraordinary Council of Ministers, these measures were taken on the very eve of the official opening of the campaign for the municipal and regional elections of May 28, where this water issue promises to be central. This has led the right-wing opposition to accuse the executive of electoralism.
Spain is facing a dramatic drought as the level of the country’s water reservoirs – which store rainwater for use in drier months – fell in the first week of May to 48.9 % of their capacity, the fifth consecutive weekly decline.
Drought asphyxiates 80% of the land
The level is even much lower in Catalonia (north-east) and Andalusia (south), the two most affected regions, where it is around 25%.
Published just this Thursday, the new report of the country’s main agricultural union, the Coordination of Farmers’ and Breeders’ Organizations (Coag), paints a dramatic picture of the situation in the agricultural world, which is only getting worse, since according to him, “drought is already asphyxiating 80% of Spanish agricultural land” and that “more than five million hectares of non-irrigated cereals” have suffered “irreversible losses”.
However, the figures of the previous Coag report, published on April 13, spoke of 60% of land “asphyxiated” and 3.5 million hectares of cereals affected.
Always warmer more often
The country experienced its hottest year on record last year, with several scorching heat waves, according to the Public Meteorological Agency (Aemet).
“Spain is a country used to facing periods of drought, but due to climate change we have a much greater incidence of increasingly frequent and intense episodes,” said the Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, during a press conference.
New infrastructure planned
The simple fact that these emergency measures have been the subject of an extraordinary Council of Ministers devoted to this single subject illustrates both the urgency of the situation and the importance attached to it by the government of the socialist Pedro Sánchez. .
Of the approximately 2.19 billion euros of this plan, a little less than two thirds (1.4 billion euros) must be used for the construction of new infrastructures to remedy the water shortage in certain regions, in particular seawater desalination plants and systems to increase wastewater reuse.
Reuse 20% of wastewater
Ms Ribera clarified that the objective was to increase the proportion of reused wastewater, from the current 10% to 20% in 2027.
The remaining third (EUR 784 million) will be allocated to aid for agriculture, of which nearly half (EUR 355 million) will take the form of direct financial aid to livestock farmers and milk producers, in order to compensate part of the increase in their costs.
A sum of 276 million will go to crops and areas that the Ministry of Agriculture considers most affected by the drought.
Finally, 40.5 million euros will be used to subsidize up to 70% the cost of insurance policies once morest drought taken out by farmers.
In this regard, the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, pointed out that the compensation to compensate for the losses suffered by farmers due to the drought had already reached 300 million euros since the beginning of the year.
No spring sowing
The lack of water has prompted many farmers to give up spring sowing, particularly of cereals and oilseeds, with the risk of causing shortages and a new spike in food prices, the sharp rise in which is already the one of the main components of inflation, which rose to 4.1% in April.
Ensuring the continuity of food production is therefore also a political priority for Pedro Sánchez, as general elections will take place at the end of the year and the campaign for the municipal and regional elections of May 28 kicks off this Friday.
The leader of the People’s Party (right-wing opposition), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, reacted to the millions released by Mr Sánchez for farmers by accusing him of wanting to “scoop” them in the run-up to the elections, following having neglected them for five years.
1683833014
#Spain #billion #euro #plan #drought
