Drought is ‘new normal’ due to climate change, errors made in agriculture

The drought situation that the country is experiencing will be “the new normal”, due to climate change and mistakes made in agriculture, a sector that consumes 75% of water, argued the president of the League for the Protection of Nature on Monday.

“We must assume that we will have this crisis in the future,” said Jorge Palmeirim, speaking to Lusa, regretting that no measures were taken before the dams reached current levels.

For the head of LPN, there are crops that are “a mistake” in the south of the country, such as the planting of corn, because of the amount of water it requires.

At this moment, he argued, water cuts should be applied, especially to the agricultural sector, taking as a priority the supply to people.

“It is necessary, right now, to cut agriculture in an intelligent way,” he advocated, exemplifying that the cultivation of avocados in the south of the country also has a high consumption of water.

“When there is a lot of water, the tendency is for farmers to plant what gives more profit, and when there is a crisis, they don’t want to stop watering because they have made investments. It’s a vicious circle”, he pointed out.

According to Jorge Palmeirim, preventive measures for periods of drought were missing, justifying now a campaign for the agricultural, but also industrial and urban sector on saving water.

“When we build a dam, we increase the irrigated area as well. New dams could help solve the problem if the irrigated area is not increased,” he said.

The drought, he assured, will not pass: “It will get worse. The availability of water in the south of the country will decrease. We should see the drought as a warning so that we don’t always have to run after the damage”.

Contacted by Lusa, Jorge Palmeirim stressed that the existing plans increase the amount of irrigation in agriculture – contrary to what one would expect.

“Basically, it’s aggravating the problems we’re experiencing. It is the same thing as being on a train coming against us and instead of running away from the train, we run against it,” he said, referring to a plan also criticised today by environmental association QUERCUS, in a statement.

According to QUERCUS, more than a month after the end of the public consultation to the study “Regadio 20/30 – Survey of the Development Potential of Public Initiative Irrigation in a Decade Horizon”, and past the legal deadline for its disclosure, the opinions and contributions collected remain unpublished.

The association considered that this is “an unacceptable lack of transparency” and, having counted the planned investments, expressed its opposition to the amount earmarked for several programmes.

“Considering 233 million from the National Irrigation Programme, 400 million from the National Investment Programme (PNI 2030) and the investment planned in the PRR for the construction of the Pisão dam, in total we’re talking about around 1.5 billion to apply in irrigation in the next decade, a figure that exceeds the utopian forecasts of investment needs presented in a recent study released by FENAREG, an entity that represents more than 90% of the national organised irrigation,” reads the document issued by Quercus this morning.

The association believes that the “severe drought” that is devastating the country “at unprecedented levels” requires responses to the underlying problems and involvement of all sectors, competent bodies and civil society.