During her visit to the region, the acting minister, Ignacia Fernández, announced the signing of the first agreements that provided advance resources to farmers affected by floods in regions in the south-central part of the country.
“Today we will proceed to sign the first agreements and, as we sign the set of agreements for the projects that were submitted in the coming days, we will be in a position to be able to recover the infrastructure in sufficient time to enable the works in the next season.” With these words, the Minister (s) of Agriculture, Ignacia Fernández, announced the beginning of the agreements that will allow farmers affected by floods to receive resources.
The announcement was made within the framework of the territorial deployment of the Government in the Maule region, which was attended by the Government Spokesperson Minister, Camila Vallejo; the Minister of the Interior (s), Manuel Monsalve; the Minister of Segpres, Álvaro Elizalde; the Minister of Public Works, Jessica López; the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Carlos Montes; the Minister of Education, Nicolás Cataldo; and the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Juan Carlos Muñoz; Regional Presidential Delegate, Humberto Aqueveque; together with regional and local authorities.
“We are beginning to sign agreements with the associations of canal operators and water users who applied for the irrigation law competitions that we held as an emergency, after the June floods, to proceed with the advance payment of an advance bonus of up to 60% of the total amount of the competition,” added the agricultural authority after signing the first seven agreements belonging to water organizations of the Rosario Tapia Canal; Yacal Canal Association or the Board; Ramírez and Rinconada; San Luis; Maule; Lircay, and Melado.
For his part, the executive director of the CNR, Wilson Ureta, highlighted that “Given the significant lack of liquidity experienced by water user organizations in the doubly affected regions, by the floods in June and August, together with the Undersecretary we have devised a mechanism to be able to advance up to 60% of the bonus from the special emergency contest with a cap of $120 million per project, which is a great help to speed up the work and have it ready before the irrigation season.”
Organizations that have applied for one of the emergency competitions and whose projects are included in the preliminary list generated by the National Irrigation Commission (CNR) as of September 13 will be able to access 60% of the requested bonus, with a limit of $120 million.
Initially, a total of 167 Water User Organizations (OUA) were registered, of which 74 in the Maule region will sign the agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture, including the Maule and La Junta canals, and those of the Melado and Lircay canals have already been signed. Once this signature is made, the OUAs will be able to have the resources within 48 hours.
Acting Minister Ignacia Fernández highlighted the joint work with the unions and said that “We have been in dialogue with the SNA and the various agricultural associations from the beginning, who have raised the importance of rehabilitating the irrigation channels and ensuring that they are in good condition for the next season, the need for access to soft loans, greater liquidity to address the recovery process (…) this has been a job in which we have put ourselves at the service of finding solutions to achieve quick solutions.”
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, through the Undersecretariat, has 1.4 billion pesos available, which are resources that will speed up the recovery of irrigation canals and thus ensure agricultural production in these regions, which have a national impact on the supply of fresh foods with high nutritional value.
The regional ministerial secretary of Agriculture of the Maule region, Ana Muñoz, said that “Today we had a very important event since the CNR together with the Undersecretary of Agriculture delivered an advance, a bonus from the 33.2023 competition for the promotion of irrigation of water user organizations. So we are happy and motivated since we had the possibility of having the participation of irrigation associations from the four provinces of the region as well as several surveillance boards and that with these bonuses we can guarantee a successful irrigation season”, he concluded.
