The rehabilitation of boreholes and the use of “small mobile desalination plants” may be measures to be adopted in agricultural terms in the Algarve, to minimize the drought situation, admitted today the Minister of Agriculture, Maria do Céu Antunes.
On the sidelines of a ceremony at the Alqueva dam in the Alentejo, the minister was asked by journalists about the critical situation in the Algarve with regard to the lack of water, and revealed that the Drought Commission will meet next week, without, however, specifying the day.
A source from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food later told Lusa that the meeting will take place on the 17th at 14:30.
“Then we’ll be able to look at everything that’s being designed and thought about, which can and will go through restriction, as we’ve already had for two years, for example at the Bravura dam (Lagos), where the water is so little that it’s not even good for human supply,” said Maria do Céu Antunes.
According to the minister, who recalled that in this area it was necessary to “rehabilitate some boreholes that had been deactivated” in order to “maintain permanent crops, namely orange groves”, the contingency plans for the various agricultural uses in the Algarve “will have to be adjusted in the light of this new reality”.
“And measures are being designed that could include, for example, small mobile desalination plants that could help [and] the rehabilitation of boreholes where the aquifers allow us to do so” or even “financial compensation”, he admitted.
But, according to the Minister of Agriculture, “only” after the meeting of the Interministerial Drought Commission will the ministry be able to “say what will be on the table for agriculture in the Algarve”.
The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) expects to present a contingency plan later this month with new rules for water consumption in the Algarve, which is experiencing its longest drought on record.
The vice-president of the APA, José Pimenta Machado, admitted to the Lusa news agency on Monday that the contingency plan would penalize agriculture more, but said that the quotas had not yet been defined and would be coordinated with local actors.
The president of the Intermunicipal Community of the Algarve, António Miguel Pina, revealed to Lusa on Monday that the APA should propose rules to reduce water consumption in the Algarve by 70% for the agricultural sector and 15% for urban consumers.
Questioned today by Lusa about this 70% less water consumption in the agricultural sector, the minister declined to discuss the matter before the meeting of the Drought Commission.
“Anything I say could be extemporaneous and doesn’t make sense without first convening the inter-ministerial drought committee. A lot of work is being done, technical meetings are taking place today to find solutions to minimize the impact that all this will have on the lives of citizens, whether for human consumption or for other purposes, such as industrial, tourism and even agriculture,” he said.
According to the minister, the measures that are decided and adopted in terms of agriculture will be worked on “so that they can be implemented at the start of the next irrigation campaign”.
In the field of agriculture, Maria do Céu Antunes also said that the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) has “17 million euros of work underway to create greater resilience” in the Algarve to climate change and drought.
