Date Published: 25/10/2019
ARCHIVED - Agriculturalists propose restricting irrigation farming to protect the Mar Menor
ARCHIVED ARTICLE
The farmers advocate returning land to dry farming or none at all
It has been a source of great frustration to many people that since tens of thousands of dead fish and crustaceans were washed up on the shore of the Mar Menor a fortnight ago most of those involved in the efforts to protect the marine environment in the lagoon have seemed determined to point the finger of blame at other people, or to attribute the disaster solely to the gota fría storm of mid-September.
However, on Thursday the farming organizations COAG and FECOAM finally appeared prepared to take some action towards protecting the Mar Menor rather than merely blaming other people. In a jointly produced document they accept that intensive crop farming practices are one of the main causes of the deterioration in the lagoon (“but not the only one”) and agree on the need for strict measures to limit these practices in the future.
Among the steps proposed are the strict enforcement of a “fringe” around the Mar Menor on which no farming should be permitted – although the width of that fringe is not specified – and the return of all land which was not irrigated 25 years ago to either non-irrigated farming or none at all. In addition, they call for all unauthorized irrigation systems to be dismantled.
This might bring about calls for crop farmers to be compensated for being forced to abandon their livelihoods, but Miguel Padilla of COAG is clear on the matter. “We can’t condone someone buying a plot of dry farming land for a few euros and then turning it into irrigated farming because someone has built a desalination machine (to treat water extracted from the aquifer) nearby”, he asserted. “The Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura (CHS) has to put an end to such practices and fine wrongdoers”.
The statement also laments the fact that the regional government of Murcia has still “not defined the model of agriculture it wants”, but the two organizations, which represent 62 per cent of all agriculture in Murcia, express a conviction that sustainable agriculture can be made compatible with the protection of the Mar Menor.
Further grounds for optimism offered by the agriculturalists can be found in their assertion that with a pilot de-nitrification plant which has been built at the Tomás Ferro experimental farming institute water running off into the Mar Menor can be rid of 95 per cent of the harmful substances it contains due to the use of fertilizers in the fields.
Meanwhile, apart from the farmers of the Campo de Cartagena, the regional and national governments continue to agree that they must work together to protect the Mar Menor, but at a meeting in Madrid on Thursday between the acting Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, and the regional minister for Agriculture and the Environment, Antonio Luengo, the only concrete date set was for another meeting, this time in Murcia, on 12th November.
Other details emerging from the meeting included the assertion that vigilance on unauthorized irrigation is being made more extensive, with the number of fines imposed so far this year having more than doubled to 207, and a “route map” drawn up establishes two categories of measures to be adopted, “immediate” and “structural”.
One of the immediate actions concerns the Rambla del Albujón, along which a large proportion of the nitrates reaching the Mar Menor flow. At present the CHS is repairing a pumping system which will be used to divert runoff water away from the lagoon as a temporary partial solution while longer-term measures are decided upon, and this system is expected to be ready to be put into operation within a few weeks.
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