Alqueva: Association of Owners and Beneficiaries want competitiveness in the price of water.
Beja was presented in a novel Association of Owners and Beneficiaries of Alqueva (APBA), a structure whose main mission "to represent and defend the interests of farmers who labor in the intervention area of ​​the Purpose of Enterprise Multiple Alqueva (EFMA)", including the "guarantee of competitiveness in water prices".
The APBA comes a year after the Enterprise Development and Infrastructure of the Alqueva (EDIA) He has promoted several sessions which presented the participatory model of irrigation perimeters and the need to unite the several hundred owners and beneficiaries.
The new organization will bring together the representatives of the twenty-two irrigation areas that are part of the Global Alqueva Irrigation System, currently with 120 thousand hectares of irrigated land for exploration, with expansion planned for 170 hectares by the end of 2022.
The price of water is fixed by joint order of the Ministries of Agriculture, Environment and Finance, but in a recent interview with "Mad Money", President EDIA, José Pedro Salema, He said that "water will have to follow the rise in energy prices".
"The APBA is part of a dream that was Alqueva and you want does not become a nightmare and just maintain cooperation with the managing body", said Francisco Palma, member of the Directorate and the Association Executive Committee. "To ensure the regularization of the Guadiana river flow and ensure the rights of Portugal on the international section of the river", are goals that the farmer considered as priorities for the APBA.
In turn the president of the association, João Rodrigues Cavaco (right in the picture), He explained that "there is a private investment in the conversion of dryland to irrigation and agro-industry exceeds one billion euros", remembering that the Alqueva brand "is an opportunity", adding "water must be treated with great respect. We have to address by His Excellency ", concluded.
"EDIA has the issue while managing the infrastructure, while we have our organizational structure, We are independent entities but need each other ", He explained the president of the APBA.
João Rodrigues Cavaco, revealed six major axes of action of association: "Know the irrigation infrastructure, in particular as regards the care of their conservation and what are its weaknesses; meet the responsibilities of edia as the operator of Alqueva; survey of all irrigation blocks to identify the problems that exist, regardless of who is responsible for its resolution; fight against negative discrimination that exists between the irrigation area of ​​EFMA and other other regions, particularly in the approval of projects under the RDP program 2020; find solutions to solve the existing technical problems, with particular emphasis on the failure of the pumping station and finally Poplar, infrastructure to know which air to water inside and outside the perimeter authorized by EDIA with designs made by the recipient, wherein the new area within the perimeter infraestruturar, which water needs to EDIA will have to provide other neighboring perimeters (Purple, Odivelas, Campilhas Valley and Gaius), having holes which themselves resort to alqueva ", finished.
For better coordination and knowledge of the daily reality of Alqueva and irrigation, a APBA, named, at least, one representative for each of the 22 irrigation perimeters (see box below). The headquarters of the APBA will work at the headquarters edia, whose president, José Pedro Salema (pictured right), was present, but that did not use the word.
Bodies Socias APBA
General Assembly- President: Vitor Roque, LuÃs Gomes Faria and Joaquim
Direction- President: João Rodrigues Cavaco, Francisco Palma, José Mateus Gino, John Trinity, Fabio Paulino, Joaquim Banza, Artur Aleixo, Rui Barros, Marta Flores, Pedro Lopes, Diogo Rodrigues, João Pedro Infante, Jose Garcia Duarte, Pedro Formigo, Germano Carvalho, Vasco Martins Cortes and Eugénio Tavares de Almeida
Supervisory Board- President: Carlos Faria, Pedro Pedro Carapinha and Hugo Condesso
executive comission- President: João Rodrigues Cavaco, vice-presidents: Francisco Palma, António Vieira Lima, Banza Joaquim Cortes and Vasco Martins
representatives of 22 Irrigation blocks
Vale do Gaio (Carlos Faria), Monte Novo (Ass.Regantes / Gino José and Pedro Batista), Loureiro-Alvito (John Trinity), Caliços-Axes (João Pedro Infante), Caliços-Moura (José Manuel Duarte), Orada-Amoreira (Pedro Miguel Formigo), Alfundão (Fabio Paulino), Ervidel / Purple-Sado (Joaquim Banza), Ferreira (Vitor Manuel Roque), Five Kings-Trinity (Pedro Carapinha), Beringel-Beja (John Cavaco Rodrigues and Rui Barros), Matthias (Marta Flores, Pedro Lopes and Diogo Rodrigues), St. Peter-Baleizão (Hugo Afonso Pereira), Baleizão-Quintos (Francisco Palma), Alvito-Piso (António Vieira Lima), Sinks (Germano Carvalho), Brinches (Vasco Martins and Joaquim Faria), Serpa / Brinches-Enxoé (Eugénio Tavares de Almeida), Piso (Artur Aleixo) and Pedrogão (LuÃs Gomes Saião).
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
