The agricultural year 2017-2018 begins with reservoirs to 38.9% of its capacity, reason why strong water restrictions for the irrigators are coming, being left at the expense of the rain. This situation will influence planting decisions and will affect, in particular, maize and rice, as well as some horticultural crops.
Andrés del Campo, President of Fenacore –the association that gathers all the irrigators in Spain-, has declared that the current situation of lack of water will force a change to the farmers who will have to leaving aside crops with higher water needs.
If this autumn-winter is still a dry one, in spring (the strong irrigation campaign starts from February-March), there won’t be enough water to ensure the crops, and farmers will bet on rainfed crops in the irrigated areas.
Mr. del Campo expects that more cereals to be planted (wheat, barely) and more oilseeds (sunflower, rapeseed), crops with lower water needs but also less profitable, while the farmer will have about the same production costs. Del Campo has given an example of this: “this past season, when the lack of water was already noticed, in typical areas of maize production, yields dropped from 14,000 kg/hectare to 4,000 kg/hectare”.
Maize and rice will be among the most affected crops by farmers’ decisions due to the lack of water.
The irrigators’ President warned that, if the situation doesn’t improve, certain horticultural and fruit productions will be very affected as well, with the “risk of stopping the supply to markets which later won’t be easy to recover”.
The current situation has shown, Del Campo added, “the need for the modernization of our irrigation systems, in order to distribute water more efficiently and without water losses”.
Given the situation of the reservoirs (with water only at 38.9% of its capacity, when a year ago, they were at 51.4%), “from now on we’re totally dependent on rainwater”.
(Source: efeagro.com)