Zaragoza (EFE).- The Department of Agriculture of the Government of Aragon considers it a priority to “guarantee payment of the PAC”, but does not rule out “neither supporting nor taking” any economic measure, either through credits at zero cost for the farmer , of fiscal or Social Security measures or even possible direct aid for the agricultural sector in view of the serious situation in which the countryside finds itself due to the drought.
These are some of the requirements that have been transferred to the Minister of Agriculture, Joaquín Olona, the representatives of the agricultural organizations and agri-food cooperatives with whom he has met to report on the issues and decisions adopted this Wednesday at the Drought Table convened by the ministry and listen to their proposals.
And it is that, the representatives of farmers and ranchers face this year not only the loss of practically the entire dry cereal harvest, but the lack of rain will prevent them from facing the planting of summer crops such as alfalfa , sunflower, rice or pipirigallo and could entail repercussions and sanctions derived from the CAP.
A potentially catastrophic situation
What has generated, according to what the counselor has declared to the media, a “potentially catastrophic” and “extremely serious” situation, not only because of the losses that have already occurred, but because of the “great probability” that there is that they will continue to occur damage due to negative weather forecasts.
Situation, in his opinion, which has also been aggravated “by the lack of effectiveness of the drought insurance” and the low coverage, of only 26% in herbaceous, 3% in the almond tree and 2% in the olive grove, and with zones “close to zero” that Olona has attributed to conditions that show that “it is not effective” and that “it is something that must be faced in the medium and long term”.
Thus, it has committed to the flexibility of all issues related to non-compliance with results that the CAP requires to collect aid. “Farmers, having done what they had to do, can rest easy because they are going to take the regulatory measures for it,” he assured.
In this sense, Aragon will ask the Ministry of Agriculture and the European Commission for exceptions to avoid that, by complying with certain requirements, farmers are forced to incur costs in crops that “no longer have a chance of success” when, it has warned, they have faced ” the most expensive planting in history”.
Irrigation modernization and annual hyperregularization
But he has also called for the modernization of irrigation for more efficient water management and, in the medium and long term, “betting on annual hyper-regulation”, since, in his opinion, “the situation of water scarcity is a consequence of this lack of regulation”, since the reservoirs that Aragon has “are only capable of filling or regulating with the rain that falls each year”.
Therefore, he understands that “more and larger reservoirs” are needed that can store water for several years, something that, he recalled, is included in the Aragon Water Pact, but that requires “a greater degree of compliance”.
“We have never had a crop as expensive as this one,” said the president of Asaja Aragón, José Manuel Cebollada, who has assured that they have assumed a price of fertilizers “three times” more expensive or that of fuel, at the time of planting, at the “highest point of rise”, while, like the rest of the organizations, it has shared the need to “turn the insurance around” so that it covers the productions.
Huge amounts of money to not collect ‘not a grain’
“We have put in huge amounts of money and we are not going to take a grain,” agreed the president of Araga, Jorge Valero, who has highlighted the problems when preparing the PAC declarations that, in addition, has claimed that “it has to be paid soon.”
It has also requested compensatory measures to prevent a sector such as agriculture and livestock “going bankrupt and disappearing”, for what it means for the structuring of the territory, the maintenance of the population and the conservation of biodiversity and the environment. atmosphere.
Enrique Arcéiz, Secretary of Organization of UPA Aragón, has warned that it is a problem that not only affects the agricultural sector, since “a whole series of problems will be chained that will reach the consumer” and, therefore, believes that it is a national problem that has to be considered of general interest to seek a solution and palliative measures that help to solve the situation.
Meteorological drought and hydrological drought
However, he considers that the measures “cannot be coffee for everyone”, because in Aragon there are “two droughts, the meteorological and the hydrological”, at the same time that he has asked that this work not stop due to the elections “to make him see to the European Commission the problem”.
For the provincial secretary of UAGA in the province of Zaragoza, José Antonio Miguel, it is “an exceptional situation that requires exceptional measures” to alleviate these “multi-million dollar” losses, but in which professionals and professionals must be “prioritized”. “Not to all recipients of the CAP.”
In the case of the Agri-Food Cooperatives, the drought, as its president, Víctor Nogués, has pointed out, will fundamentally affect “all the effort made in foreign trade” to export products such as alfalfa but, in addition, he has recognized that if there is no harvest, there will also be “problems to maintain jobs”, especially the qualified ones.