López Miras announces an aid package of 28.6 million to modernize the agricultural sector

The head of the regional Executive, Fernando López Miras, announced on Thursday the launch of an aid package endowed with 28.6 million euros “to continue modernizing the agricultural and livestock sectors of the Region of Murcia.” Thus, the Community will publish in the coming days these calls for subsidies charged to the ‘Next Generation’ funds, which will allow the implementation of new precision techniques, improve the supply and saving of water, improve energy efficiency or transform greenhouses.

Specifically, these are eight lines of aid that seek to make the regional primary sector take a new leap in quality. Of these, the largest amounts are those aimed at improving energy efficiency and the generation of renewables in irrigation communities (10.9 million); those that will allow the modernization of greenhouses (9.9 million); that aimed at applying precision agriculture and 4.0 technologies (3.3 million); aid for the improvement of supply networks and reduction of water losses in small municipalities (2.1 million) and aid for manure management in livestock (1.4 million).

López Miras announced this aid package during his participation in the Future in Spanish forum in the Region of Murcia, organized by the newspaper LA VERDAD and CAF-Development Bank of Latin America. In this framework, the regional official stressed the importance of supporting the reduction of water losses, since “the Region owes its history and its present to the perfect use of water.” Likewise, he praised “the continuous modernization of irrigation techniques”, with processes that “are admired and taken as a reference throughout the world.”

“Our responsibility is to move forward in something in which we are experts, that we know and master perfectly”, added the president of the Community, who reaffirmed the commitment of his Executive “for a comprehensive water cycle management policy based on guarantee its availability and quality”, but also “in the purification and reuse of water”. In this regard, he recalled that the Region “is a world reference in this reuse, as evidenced by the fact that it purifies 99% of wastewater.”

The president highlighted other milestones in the Region in this field, such as the park of 99 treatment plants that serve 99.3% of the population “and that obtain excellent quality water”; the drafting of the second Sanitation Master Plan with a planned investment of more than 520 million euros, or the fact that the Region “is one of the only three communities in Spain and one of the few in Europe that fully complies with the regulations stipulated by the Urban Waste Water Directive”.

Defense of the Transfer and letter to Minister Ribera

López Miras affirmed that “talking about our agricultural and water sector in the Region is talking about the infrastructure that has made it possible for all this to become a reality and that is vital for our survival: the Tajo-Segura Transfer”. For this reason, he promised that “I and my Government will be in front of those who are now determined to close the Diversion, with the catastrophic consequences that it would have from a social, economic and environmental point of view.”

“All the basin plans in Spain have been made more flexible, but not that of the Tagus,” denounced López Miras, who pointed out that “the unaffordable cuts proposed by the Ministry to reduce the transferable flow are based on partial studies that do not respond to scientific criteria nor technical. Faced with this situation, López Miras reported that “yesterday I sent a letter to Minister Ribera, just as I did recently to the President of the Government himself, in which I ask for a thorough review of the ecological flows by a central public body that determines figures again.

The new Hydrological Plan for the Tagus drawn up by the Ministry for Ecological Transition represents a decrease in shipments from the Tagus to the Segura of 105 cubic hectometres per year. As a consequence, the Segura Hydrographic Confederation itself foresees the disappearance of 12,000 hectares, 5,000 jobs and 122 million euros in production value. “These cuts are intended to be replaced by water coming mainly from desalination, with the extra cost that would entail, coupled with the increase in carbon dioxide emissions,” he criticized.