Minister Mattos stressed the importance of the Asian country having a specialized portfolio in the matter.
The Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries, Fernando Mattos, seeks to strengthen cooperation between the two countries in water matters.
Photo: MGAP
Within the framework of what was the official tour of the authorities of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and fishing (MGAP) in Chinathe minister fernando mattos held a meeting with the Chinese Vice Minister of Water resources, tian xuebin. In it, the Uruguayan representatives sought advice and raised the need to “strengthen cooperation in irrigation and water management.”
Minister Mattos highlighted yesterday in his speech before the rural federation the fact that the Asian giant has a portfolio specialized in the matter, due to the fact that “the problem of the lack of water, whether for drinking or producing, is an age-old issue in China”, and, therefore, “we have to turn to someone who has experience“.
The head of the MGAP remarked that in a good part of the productive zone of China there are “rainfall regimes of 400 to 500 millimeters”, so the meeting was a good meeting to find out about “an experience of more than 2,000 years of civil constructions, channel transfer, generation of dams and modern irrigation systems“.
Mattos maintained that new droughts will come in the future
Mattos warned that “surely other droughts will come in the coming years” to Uruguay“like this or more intense“, he stressed. Along these lines, he recalled that the president Luis Lacalle Pou entrusted MGAP with the preparation of a structural works project for irrigation systems and reservoirs, in order to face potential future water crises.
“We have poorly distributed water“, insisted Mattos in his speech. However, he assured that “we have the topography to dam” and that “we have to have the conditions” but there is a lack of training, investment and determination, since “Uruguay normally has plenty of water, it does not missing”.
For the minister, being able to solve the problem of water scarcity is the “great productive insurance of the future”, because if the drought were to extend for one or two more years, “the consequences will be terrible, not only for the agricultural sector, but for all of society”.
Source: Ambito
