Mexico City.- In Mexico, food production has been identified as the main source of water consumption, but the reality is that a joint plan is required between productive sectors, Government and society to improve water infrastructure and reorganize distribution, specialists said. .
In the second edition of the Sustainable Mexico Council, organized by UPL, César Bustamante, leading economist at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), explained that in addition to the CFE being the main consumer of water, the irrigation districts created after the Revolution and The disorderly growth of production units today gives way to some water concessions being commercialized before tending to crops.
“The number of producers and the number of irrigated areas have decreased. Why? Because unfortunately in this part of the diagnosis, what is working as an economic incentive today are precisely the water concessions.
“Today many producers are stopping production to sell their water rights, because today large companies are collecting not only agricultural land but also water concessions,” he warned.
He recalled that currently there are nearly 50 thousand production units in the country, which are the main consumers of the available water after the water received by CFE.
“There we have that these irrigation units, which are 7.2 million hectares, are one of the main consumers of water, 70 percent of the water, but it should be said, it is 70 percent of the water that does not go to the CFE, because the CFE is the main consumer of water for energy generation,” he explained.
Marisa Ortiz, representative elected for Guanajuato, pointed out that it is necessary to consider that allocating water to agriculture is essential to have food.
He stressed that agriculture must be part of the solutions for the conservation of aquifers, but to do so producers need to invest in technology and achieve profitability.
“We need to create incentives for conservation, on the issue of water we always talk about the use of the countryside, industry, cities, but we do not talk about the complete cyclical,” he said.
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