A total of 29 small farmers from Ñuble benefited from resources from the Regional Government for minor irrigation and drainage works on their properties, through the program “Mitigation of the impact of water deficit in emergency areas in the Ñuble Region” carried out by Indap.
The initiative is designed so that a total of 300 users from the 21 communes in the region, declared under agricultural emergency due to the effects of productive damage derived from water deficit, receive resources for irrigation systems.
Along with remembering that this was a commitment of Governor Óscar Crisóstomo, Governor (S) Alicia Contreras, explained that the program lasts 24 months, and that it seeks “to ensure that women farmers can solve the problems of food and irrigation on their own farms. So we are very happy, benefiting 29 users with 170 million, through the first contest that is launched to address the water shortage and problem that we have in the region.”
For her part, the regional director of INDAP, Fernanda Azócar, stressed that an alliance is being initiated that “thanks to the contribution of the Regional Government, today we are launching a contest that aims to enable water sources. Nearly 1,000 million pesos are destined for peasant family farming in these matters, which will impact nearly 300 farmers and today in particular, although we are launching this contest, we are also benefiting a significant number of rural and peasant women, which is an alliance with Prodemu, through the Women’s Seremi, because it is also a presidential mandate, and that this Regional Governor, Óscar Crisóstomo, has deeply emphasized that water ownership must also have relevance in matters “gender, to reduce the existing gaps in the agricultural world.”
Scarcity of Water Resources
Regarding this benefit, The Seremi of Agriculture, Antonio Arriagada, maintained that “access to water is a human right, to be able to have it not only to drink, but also to produce, to get ahead. Today we have several resources: soil, water and human resources, or rather, the knowledge of our farmers. In that sense, the farmers who are present here are farmers who have made great efforts and have come forward with knowledge that needs support and that needs resources. In that aspect, providing them with water is a great opportunity for them to diversify their production, to make it bigger.”
One of the beneficiaries of the program, Rosa Vega, a beneficiary from Cobquecura, expressed her gratitude and assured that “the issue of water today is a resource that we have to take care of, we have to maintain, and what better than that than to thank the Regional Government that listened to us, this was a fight that we fought a long time ago, that meetings were organized, and today from that fight we have the fruit of being able to win 29 women from the Ñuble region, the issue of projects so that we can have water, we can continue growing as entrepreneurs, we can continue growing as rural women, which is the importance of today.”
The program has a total cost of M$1,104,000, which will be contributed through the National Regional Development Fund. The financial incentive provided reaches an annual maximum of up to $3,500,000 for individual works.
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