The ongoing water shortage in the Spanish region of Murcia could lead to a “drastic” reduction in the province’s citrus and vegetable harvest this autumn if it continues unabated, a leading association has warned this week.
Alfonso Gálvez Caravaca, general secretary of Asaja Murcia, said in a statement that “without water this summer, the fruit and vegetable harvests this autumn will be drastically lower”.
Mr Gálvez Caravaca said the consequences of the serious drought had been seen in the fall in production that Murcian growers had experienced in the last five years, which he claimed had caused their income to drop by 40 to 50 per cent.
“We need water resources because without them the citrus and vegetable crops could be reduced by 30 to 40 per cent during the coming campaign,” he said.
Asaja Murcia’s general secretary said the situation was hitting the smaller producers the hardest, provoking many of them to abandon their farms. All of this, he argued, was evidence of the “major crisis” that was currently affecting the region’s agricultural sector.
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