The Diplomat
The Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, yesterday defended Spain’s experience in the efficient use of water for agriculture and digitalisation in irrigation to tackle climate change and drought in the Mediterranean region.
Planas made these remarks during his participation in the meeting of ministers from the nine EU Mediterranean States (MED9), held in Cyprus under the title ‘The threats of drought in the primary sector of the Mediterranean Member States’, where ideas and experiences were exchanged to achieve a more useful EU policy to tackle climate change and its effects, such as drought.
During his speech, the minister shared the experience of Spain – which has suffered periods of severe drought in 2012, 2017 and 2023 – in the efficient use of water and assured that more than 80% of the irrigated agricultural land in our country has efficient irrigation systems.
He also expressed Spain’s support for boosting cooperation in areas such as the adoption of new water-saving technologies and the promotion of sustainable practices in the management of water use in agriculture. In this regard, he pointed out that digitalisation and new technologies will be some of the solutions for dealing with increasingly adverse climatic periods.
Planas also referred to the plan for the modernisation of sustainable irrigation undertaken by the Government in 2022, with actions to make better use of every drop of water and to commit to energy efficiency in irrigation, as well as actions for the use of non-conventional water (regenerated or desalinated) to guarantee supply and combat drought. In total, as the Ministry indicated in a press release, an investment of more than 2,400 million euros is planned with European and national public funds and the participation of the private sector (irrigation communities).
In addition, Luis Planas stressed that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the main instruments for mitigating the effects of drought, especially through the application of the so-called ‘eco-schemes’, whose application in Spain, he said, has been very satisfactory, since more than 88% of CAP beneficiary farmers have opted for at least one of these practices, which cover 77% of the surface area.
The minister also warned that the EU must take new steps to tackle the climate and environmental transition, with measures that go hand in hand with adequate support for the primary sector, and stated that agriculture must play a leading role in meeting environmental and climate challenges, since the agricultural sector is not the problem, but an important part of the solution.
The meeting, which was attended by the EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Janusz Wojciechowski, was attended by the ministers of Spain, Cyprus, Slovenia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and the Secretary of State of Croatia.
The participants yesterday adopted a “very interesting institutional declaration, to discuss its content in the future”, according to Planas. The text included Spain’s explicit support for the implementation of sustainable water management practices in agriculture, the strengthening of cooperation between Mediterranean countries and the promotion of the use of water-saving technologies.
