The price of water in Alqueva will only increase according to the inflation rate. The guarantee is from Rui Garrido, President of the Federation of Associations of Farmers of Baixo Alentejo (Faabu), sure this is a “great news for watering holes”, as, over the table, there was a rise in tariffs greater than 80%, bail.
Last Thursday at the opening session of Ovibeja, Rui Garrido gave voice to the farmers' revolt, pointing out that, “already with the irrigation campaign in progress”, a EDIA (management company of Alqueva) made a price increase proposal for 2023. “an ascent of 140% for direct irrigators, at low pressure and for adjacent irrigation perimeters, and 80% for the direct perimeters, in high pressure”.
If that were to happen, “most of the annual crops would be unfeasible and would put a large part of the permanent crops at risk”, warned. This was, moreover, one of “concerns contained in the letter to the Minister of Agriculture”.
Financing denied
When Lidador News, EDIA source revealed the new prices per cubic meter of water supplied from Alqueva. “For low pressure sprinklers, passes 3,2 to 3,51 cents and for those receiving high pressure water it goes from 5,9 to 6,48 cents. This value was indexed to the first three months of the year”, justified.
One of the facts that most influence the price of water, is the energy cost. EDIA has installed photovoltaic systems to reduce the cost per cubic meter supplied to irrigators.
Rui Garrido revealed that “a financing, request by EDIA to the European Central Bank, for the creation of more wind farms, had been rejected by the Ministry of Finance, a decisive investment to lower the price of water”. A 29 October 2019, EDIA announced that it had launched the largest floating project in Europe, funded 45 million euros by the Development Bank of the Council of Europe and the remaining five million of the company's equity. The energy produced so far is for self-consumption, which allows EDIA to save 60% on billing volume, and the surplus is fed into the national grid.
Multi-Purpose Development in Alqueva
The Alqueva development has 12 .414 hectares of irrigation, spread across 25 irrigation perimeters in operation, wherein, in campaign 2022, EDIA received 2009 requests for irrigation use in an area of 109 383 hectares. Last year, the irrigators consumed a volume of 390 388 989 cubic meters (m3) of water, 76% do total; beneficiary associations 105 667 593 m3, 20%; and the Águas de Portugal Group the remaining 4%, total no 9 691 651 m3.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
