The rains in March have brought some relief to Algarve agriculture, but the regional director of Agriculture in the Algarve has said the situation remains “worrying."
According to Pedro Valadas Monteiro, despite the rainfall recorded this month being above average in the region, the situation “remains worrying” and the hydrological year is still in deficit. To recover, it would have to rain in April and May as much it has rained in March.
“From the point of view of the medium and long term, practically everything remains the same, the only thing is that, immediately, those who had irrigated crops and were watering, such as orange trees, avocados and permanent irrigated crops - they are not watering, because it is raining and the month of March has been rainy”, he said.
According to the regional director of Agriculture and Fisheries, the average rainfall in the hydrological year, which begins on October 1st, is 600 millimetres. However, until March 21st, in the Algarve, this value was around 250 millimetres, still “far from 600”, which means that, despite some “relief”, “it will no longer be possible to recover liabilities”.
Although the accumulated amount of rain is above the reference average of the time series used - which ranges from 1971 to 2000 - and this month, compared to the other months of March in this series, "is above average", the impact on water reserves "is low” because the soils “are not yet saturated and surface water does not reach the dams”, explained Pedro Valadas Monteiro.
The impact of the rains that fell in March is “good” and will “fill the reservoir” for some “rainfed crops that have managed to survive until now,” he said. However, “many of them, namely cereals, did not survive because there was no water”.
“For irrigated crops, farmers stopped watering in March, because the rainfall that fell is enough not to irrigate. They can last another two to three weeks, depending on the Algarve area - in the center and East Algarve more water fell than in the West of the region”, he added.
Due to the drought in mainland Portugal, on February 1st the Government decreed limits to energy production in several dams and suspended the use of water from the Bravura dam for irrigation.
Source Lusa
