A few weeks ago, a very popular politician stated that one of the pillars holding up the development of the Spanish economy was the agrifood sector.
A rather obvious statement, since Spain is not a power in the industrial or technological sectors and much less so in the area of R&D.
All those of us who work for and in the sector know about its strengths, but also its hardships. And the year that has just ended brought the endemic problem affecting Spanish agriculture out into the open: water scarcity.
In Spain there are regions that need water transfers from other areas because their own resources are insufficient. The farming sector in Murcia is dehydrated; water for the tropical sector in Malaga is at an all time low and there is a threat to the future of the strawberry plantations in El Condado, Huelva.
In one place or another, the problems are based on water transfers from rivers, on storage in reservoirs, in wells that no longer have enough water, desalination plants or problems with the river basins.
We have spent years, if not decades, patching up the problem. The time has come to give priority to water policies, to redefine the needs, but above all, to guarantee water to continue with the agricultural activity, as well as deciding whether desalination plants are too expensive or not.
The water challenges in Spain are not derived from its scarcity, but rather from its correct governability and, at the moment, water has only been a weapon to be thrown back and forth between institutions belonging to different political parties. We are living through a disastrous politicisation of water that must end.
