Zaragoza, Apr 20 (EFE).- The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, assured this Thursday that the Government is working on the preparation of various measures at the fiscal level and aid to the countryside in order to consolidate the agri-food market Spanish at one point, he added, “particularly complicated” due to the seriousness of the drought that is affecting the country as a whole.
Planas has made this statement in Fraga (Huesca), within the framework of the celebration of the XII Institutional Conference “Digitalization of the Aragon and Catalonia Canal”, organized by the Community of Irrigators of the Aragon and Catalonia Canal, an organization that has considered “exemplary” in terms of the efficient use of water and with a view to the future of the agri-food sector.
“When talking about drought, there are those who believe that the water dedicated to irrigation does not make sense, but it is precisely the opposite,” stressed the minister after indicating that 80% of the water is used for irrigation, which in turn make up two thirds of plant production in Spain.
In this sense, he explained that during the Council of Ministers this Tuesday a report was presented with the actions that will be carried out under the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, with a total of 1,255 million that will increase up to 2,130 with own resources.
He stressed that these investments will be used for “absolutely necessary” actions in terms of better use of water, to reduce the energy bill by promoting the use of renewable energy and to promote a better application of phytosanitary products and fertilizers.
After highlighting that Spain is currently the fourth country in Europe in export of agri-food products and the seventh in the world, a position that, he added, must be consolidated, the minister explained that the current situation has led the Government to call the Climatic Events Monitoring Commission and to celebrate, yesterday, Wednesday, the Drought Table.
Planas has highlighted that the Government has been working for several weeks to outline various support measures for the rural sector that are expected to be announced over the next few days, and to face a situation of drought aggravated by high temperatures and climate change.
He has referred to the special situation of scarcity that the irrigated lands of the Guadalquivir and Guadiana basins and the internal ones of Catalonia are going through, but also to the difficulties of the dry land to obtain yields due to the lack of rain.
Regarding the projected measures, he has distinguished between those that correspond to the central government and those that can be implemented from the EU through the Community Agrarian Policy (PAC) in order to obtain aid from Brussels.
As he explained, some of these measures are already in operation, such as the Combined Agricultural Insurance, with direct compensation for the effects of the drought.