News in brief: The aid will reduce the cost per cubic meter of desalinated water destined for crops by 10 cents.

The Plenary of the Valencia Council has approved the decree regulating the granting of 2.5 million euros in subsidies aimed at the communities of irrigators who use the Tajo-Segura transfer of the province of Alicant. The order will help reduce by 10 cents the cost of each cubic meter of desalinated water destined for the irrigation of their crops. “This is the way of supporting farmers who use the transfer to cope with the purchase of water from desalination plants. They now have sufficient resources to continue their activity, given the progressive reduction of flows transferred to the Segura provided for by the royal decree that approves the basin plans,” as reported by the Council in a statement.

After the meeting of the plenary of the Council, the spokeswoman, Aitana Mas, stressed that the Valencian government “at all times” has defended that the Tajo-Segura transfer is “unrenounceable”, but that at the same time it must “look for alternatives to adapt to the circumstances” and the future because the Valencian Community is in the “epicenter of climate change.”

Mas has defended the subsidy as an aid to irrigators to alleviate “the effects of a lack of water from the Tagus-Segura transfer.”

According to the subsidy decree, the maximum universal amount to be granted amounts to 2.5 million euros and will be destined to pay 10 cents per cubic meter of desalinated water. The  cubic volume will have satisfied the irrigation communities from January 1 to November 15, 2023, since the estimate of the need for desalinated water for this campaign is a maximum of 25 cubic hectometres.

The reduction in the cost of desalinated water approved by this decree is in addition to the subsidy of the Government of Spain. Therefore, the final price of the cubic meter access that farmers belonging to 26 irrigation communities using the transfer will have to pay will be 0.22 euros per cubic meter.

The decree points out in its explanatory statement that the origin of water for the irrigable areas of these regions, which are declared as of general interest to the State, comes from the Tajo-Segura transfer as well as reused purified water and water from desalination plants.  

It also refers to the Royal Decree 35/2023, of January 24, which approves the review of the hydrological plans of the 12 hydrographic demarcations, which establishes the new ecological flows in the Tagus basin. This means a gradual decrease in the flows transferred to the Segura of 105 hm3/year by 2027, compared to those that are currently being received.

The reduction of the transfer flow compromises the availability of necessary water resources in this area (in Valencia) of large agricultural production where there is also a large number of companies and jobs associated with the agri-food sector, dedicated to logistics, transport, packaging or distribution, to name a few examples.

For all these reasons, the Council considers it necessary to “compensate for this water deficit by providing aid to facilitate the purchase of other water sources, such as desalinated water, at an affordable price.”

Source: Elpais.com