The Government is working on a new package of agricultural sector support measures to mitigate the effects of drought on agricultural and livestock production. The Drought Bureau, meeting today under the chairmanship of the Under-Secretary of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Ernesto Abati García-Manso, has examined the situation of the different sectors and territories, and has articulated coordination mechanisms, together with the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, to identify the possible measures to adopt.
The undersecretary has announced that, in addition, Minister Luis Planas is going to send a letter immediately to the European Commission to raise all those flexibility measures or exceptional measures in the application of the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) due to the special difficulties encountered by Spanish crops as a result of the drought so that farmers and ranchers do not see their access to aid at risk. Likewise, the Spanish Agricultural Guarantee Fund (FEGA) is going to convene a meeting with the autonomous communities to adopt all national measures in this area.
With the commitment to establish a permanent channel of communication while this drought situation persists, representatives of all the autonomous communities, the agricultural professional organizations Asaja, UPA and COAG, the Confederation of Agri-Food Cooperatives of Spain and the National Federation of Irrigators of Spain, as well as representatives of the ministries of Agriculture and Ecological Transition, have participated in the meeting in person or telematically.
The Bureau has been established as a technical forum for dialogue, coordination and inter-administrative cooperation of the different regional and national measures, and as an instrument for channelling the various proposals for action proposed. In the course of the meeting, the rainfall and availability reports have been shared, an analysis has been made of the general and particularized situation in the different autonomous communities and proposals have been put on the table that will now have to be analyzed.
The drought situation is serious and widespread, although it reveals important differences in the territory and highlights the affection to the basins of the Guadalquivir, Guadiana and the interiors of Catalonia. The average value of precipitation accumulated since the beginning of the hydrological year (October 1, 2022) is 23.5% lower than the normal value.
During the meeting, the advances of surfaces and production have been presented and the most relevant difficulties for territories and sectors in agricultural and livestock production have been analyzed. The most important diseases have been detected in livestock farming, particularly extensive livestock farming and beekeeping, as well as in arable crops in the areas most affected by the water deficit in the above-mentioned basins.
The Drought Bureau met for the last time on March 4, 2022 and as a result of its work was the royal decree-law approved in the Council of Ministers with measures to support the agricultural sector in the fiscal, labor, financial and hydraulic fields that involved six ministries.