Access to water was the main concern expressed on Thursday last week by the Algarve farmers, during a Regional Advisory Board promoted by the Directorate of the Confederation of Farmers of Portugal (CAP), said the president of this Socioprofessional Association.
At the end of the regional council held in Altez, in the municipality of Silves, Álvaro Mendonça and Moura took stock of the meeting and told the Lusa agency that it is necessary to find solutions to ensure that Algarve farmers have access to water, so that they could develop the activity in the region and grow.
“The first and huge concern, central, recurring, the water issue,” he said, defending the “need to walk forward with the Alportel and Foupana dams” and “thinking about what is needed to build to ensure water in the Set of the Well ”, an Algarve subregion most affected by the scarcity of water caused by the drought that affects the south of the country.
The president of CAP acknowledged that there was in the sector “some hope” in the “water that unites us”, a national strategy for water management that is being prepared by the government, but said he hoped the executive “ambitious” and can “trace a Plan for the country ”, with plans for the coming years and a calendar of the interventions to be executed.
Álvaro Mendonça and Moura pointed out that agricultural production in the Algarve is “very interesting” in several areas and gave the example of winecriticulture, which is “very reputed” and demonstrates the “potential” of the region for the sector.
Another of the concerns expressed in the Algarve Advisory Board was the need to “pay attention to the forest,” said the president of, considering that “one cannot look at the forest only when it burns.”
Álvaro Mendonça and Moura stressed that the pasture can contribute to reducing the risk of fires and the application of phytopharmaceuticals in the fields, but to this happen, it is necessary to “resume the question of controlled fire”, because “without doing some controlled fire in certain Areas, it is not possible to do a grazing. ”
The leader of the Agricultural Confederation also defended the need to look at agriculture in a positive way and to take advantage of the potential to develop the sector in a region where, despite water embarrassment, the activity has been growing.
“We have to be more positive, we have to export more, we have to reduce the ‘deficit’ of our food balance. Therefore, the goal has to be growing. Now grow sustainable, grow with respect for the environment. But growing up, this is the goal, it has to be the objective of the country, ”he said.
To this end, the president of the CPA advocates for the need to “pass the idea for the presentation of projects” and advance with the “calendar” of projects such as the Ribeiras of Alportel and Foupana and the study of solutions for the Wind (West) where water scarcity is more severe.
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