SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 28. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Irrigation Community of Los Sauces, in La Palma, and the State Society of Agricultural Infrastructures (SEIASA), dependent on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, have signed today, Monday, the first of the agreements that will be signed in the Canary Islands within the Plan Improvement of the Efficiency and Sustainability of Irrigation.
Today’s signing will allow a project of digital transformation and development of new technologies to be launched to modernize the irrigation network of this municipality in the north of La Palma, which will have financing of 1.37 million euros.
Also present at the formalization of the agreement between the president of SEIASA, Francisco Rodríguez, and the president of the Los Sauces Irrigation Community, Jesús Manuel Hernández, were the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Government of the Canary Islands, Alicia Vanoostende; the Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana; and the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Cabildo de La Palma, Manuel González.
After the event, Alicia Vanoostende recalled that her department has worked for months with the different irrigation water management units on the islands to be eligible for this financing from the Next Generation Funds, which have made it possible to articulate the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Spanish Economy to repair the economic and social damage caused by the pandemic.
In total, the Canary Islands will receive 62.3 million euros, distributed in two phases. To the first of them, in which the agreement signed today will be executed, 18.63 million euros will be allocated, while the amount for the pre-selected works for the future agreement of the second phase will be 43.72 million. In each of them, five projects designed to optimize the use of available water and increase the competitiveness of productions will materialize.
“We have worked with the irrigation communities of Los Sauces, El Paso, El Golfo and Santa Cruz de La Palma, Breñas and Mazo, as well as with the public company Balsas de Tenerife, the Cabildo de Lanzarote, the Insular Water Council of Gran Canaria and the Fuerteventura Water Consortium to prepare the ten initiatives aimed at the modernization and consolidation of irrigation”, said the minister. “All of them have been declared of general interest by the Ministry’s Directorate General for Rural Development, Innovation and Agrifood Training,” she added.
The Ministry, through the General Directorate of Agriculture, was in charge of defending before the state body the convenience of these initiatives to improve the efficiency and sustainability of the irrigation networks of the Canary Islands. Of all of them, the projects have been updated or are in the process of being updated by the General Directorate of Agriculture and meet the criteria of sustainability, energy efficiency, use of renewable energies and application of new technologies.
The Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, highlighted the importance of this day, “since an agreement is signed that represents a milestone for La Palma, being the first agreement of others that materialize in this area with the Island and in the Canary Islands”. “It shows the commitment that exists on the part of the Government of Spain with La Palma and especially with its primary sector, which is key to the island’s economy,” he explained.
The president of SEIASA, Francisco Rodríguez, reported that “this action will consist of the modernization of a community of irrigators and will benefit an approximate surface of 77 hectares. The financing obtained will favor localized irrigation, through the placement of meters with remote control, associated with a computerized plan to digitize the irrigation system,” he added. In addition, he added that “on average, it is estimated that, through this system, water savings will be between 15% and 25%”.
For his part, the president of the Los Sauces Irrigation Community, Jesús Manuel Hernández, highlighted “this agreement represents an important step forward for an institution that includes all the farmers who benefit from the water from the Marcos and Lamb”. He alluded to the innovation involved in the project to promote better use of water in one of the most fertile areas of the Canary Islands.
First project
This first project that has been formalized today will serve to provide the Caldereta Network with water delivery points to the farms and the remote control system to remotely monitor the hydraulic networks. Also included is the remote control of the hydrometers of the Adeyahamen and Bediesta Networks, which are used to measure the density of water.
In addition to helping to improve the efficiency of the irrigation system, the Los Sauces Irrigation Community project meets the objective of adapting the infrastructure to mitigate climate change.
