Survival irrigation for trees in the area of ​​influence of the Canal d’Urgell, in Lleida, is not guaranteed during all the summer months, “it depends on the new contributions that may reach the Rialb reservoir in the coming months”, according to the General Community of Irrigators of the Canals d’Urgell. On April 25, when it closed its main channel, it guaranteed domestic consumption and a monthly irrigation for the survival of trees.
With the current reserves, the General Community of Regantes de los Canals d’Urgell only guarantees survival irrigation for the fruit trees this summer. He has already asked the Institute of Agro-Food Research and Technology (IRTA) for a field study to assess the ideal time to water and the way. “Probably it will be at the beginning of June”, says the director general of Canales de Urgell, Xavier DÃaz.
The plenary session of the governing board agreed on Tuesday that the distribution of water for municipal supplies will be carried out continuously with a minimum operating rate of between 1.5 and 2 cubic meters per second.
The Business Association of Fruit of Catalonia (Afrucat), considers that a single irrigation does not guarantee the survival of the fruit trees. In the meeting held by the Government sub-delegate, José CrespÃn, with the sector, the director of Afrucat, Manel Simon, has asked the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge to draw up a plan of priorities in the face of a situation of “water war †and that Spain requests the European Union to provide State aid in the face of a “dramatic, unforeseen and uninsurable†situation.
According to the first estimates provided by Afrucat, the closure of the Urgell Canal could mean losses of 58% in the Catalan apple harvest (173,000 tons), 52% in the pear crop (74,000 tons) and the disappearance of 30% of the total fruit that Catalonia would harvest this campaign (284,000 tons).
With more than 8,600 hectares of stone and pome fruit affected by the lack of irrigation, the restrictions affect farmers in 39 municipalities. Torregrossa would lose almost 26 million kilos of fruit, 14 of them apples; Bellpuig more than 20 million kilos, 18 apples; Miralcamp 18 million, 12 blocks; Tornabous 16 million, 12 apples and Golmés 16 million, 13 apples.
In a tree survival scenario, Afrucat estimates that the losses would amount to 164 million euros, a figure that would rise to 764 million if the damage occurs if the trees do not withstand the drought. The association will shortly present another report on the impact on the irrigable area of ​​the Segarra-Garrigues canal.
Union of Farmers, JARC and ASAJA, Afrucat and the Federación de Cooperativas Agrarias (FCAC) wanted to meet with CrespÃn to convey to the different administrations their concern about the exceptional situation that Lleida is experiencing due to the lack of water resources, a meeting to which the General Community of Regantes of the Canals d’Urgell has been added.
“The meeting has served to capture the day-to-day situation of the water emergency in which we find ourselves, to know the effects, according to the subdelegate.
CrespÃn has remarked that the scenario “very changing day by day should allow the definition of a road map so that the Ministry of Agriculture can quantify the magnitude of the consequences of this situation of drought.”
