Government ignores drought in Valencia and five other autonomies and orders them by letter to encourage agricultural insurance

Faced with the request for “urgent measures” in an emergency action plan and the call of the Drought Table, when in some areas of Alicante only 25% of the average rainfall of the two decades has been recorded, the response to your letter of July 26 from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, signed by Undersecretary Ernesto Abati and sent more than a month later (September 6), is summarized in that the issue they must solve it theirs autonomies because it does not concern Spain as a whole and recommends encouraging the subscription of agricultural insurance.

“Water is a national issue and Minister Miguel Barrachina has always defended it in this way,” they stressed from the Department of Agriculture of the Generalitat Valenciana, the region where the rainfall figures are the most alarming.

This answer is “ambiguous” and “creaks” – according to the same sources – in his advice of insurance for the countryside, since he proposes to promote them and at the same time objects that if farmers get used to public aid, they will not subscribe to these payment policies.

Literally, in this letter that you had access to ABCThe ministerial leader reasons as follows: “It is necessary to encourage and support the subscription of these insurances on the part of all Administrations, especially when in many affected territories and precisely in the most affected crops, we find low subscription rates. And on the other hand, extreme caution in the granting of AIDS extraordinary measures to mitigate the damage caused by risks covered by agricultural insurance, to the extent that they are a strong disincentive to take out insurance.

Although the Ministry immediately confirms the diagnosis of a crisis in the countryside due to the lack of water, in its response letter it excludes any support other than support for initiatives specific to each autonomy. “We understand and share the concern that you express in your letter because you are aware of the situations of lack of rainfall and reduction of hydrological reserves that affect certain areas,” they acknowledge.

However, they minimize its impact and deny that it is a reality for everyone: “However, and without this distorting a legitimate concern in which we participate, it doesn’t seem that we can speak of a general situation national drought such as the one we experienced in 2022 and 2023, which gave rise to calls from the National Round Table on Drought and the adoption by the government of measures, estimated at 1,500 million euros.

The recent context of reduction of Tajo-Segura transfers or the negative outlook for the future have not influenced the mood of Pedro Sánchez’s executive either, while these transfers will remain for six months and, as the ministry itself recognizes in an “internal note”, there will not be enough water in the future, a document to which it has had access ABC.

On the other hand, the ministry presents global data on precipitation positively, thanks to Have a good year inside north And peninsular centerand delegates to address the problem in this other half of Spain. “In a territorially decentralized state like ours, and taking into account the distribution of competences in agricultural matters, the Autonomous Community is the competent institution and, therefore, the one that must lead and guide the processes of reflection and resolution of issues specific to its territorial scope,” they indicate.

It is clear that the autonomous government of Carlos Mazón is already doing this, with the sending of vats For urban supplystill the priority for water supply over agriculture. This summer, for the first time in decades, several municipalities restricted their use because the supply was not drinkable, due to salinization caused by drought shortages.