Expo Chile Agrícola 2019 was inaugurated with a seminar on water infrastructure challenges
The Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Walker
, together with the Undersecretary of the portfolio, Alfonso Vargas, inaugurated yesterday a new edition of Expo Chile Agrícola, the day began with the seminar "Challenges in water infrastructure: Is it possible to irrigate a million new hectares?", organized by the National Irrigation Commission (CNR), in which the issue was analyzed of the future of irrigation in our country.
On the occasion, the owner of the agricultural sector said: “We want to see how we are going to address the issue of agricultural emergencies, the issue of drought, the water issue. We have had a very deep debate on how to solve the agricultural emergency and the availability of water. Achieving one million hectares more is possible, but for that, we have to work differently, especially with irrigation technification. We have to do better water management, manage it better and for that we have to do it centrally, in each of the 104 basins that Chile has. ”
During the inauguration of the Chile Agricultural Expo, Minister Antonio Walker also launched the National Associativity Plan of the Ministry of Agriculture, an initiative that has been prepared for quite some time and that seeks to generate instances so that small farmers can go to more markets relevant. "We want our great legacy, our great milestone, of the Ministry of Agriculture of President Piñera, to be recognized because we managed to break the individualism of Chilean agriculture."
“We have worked the last fifteen months to be able to launch this National Plan of Associativity called MORE UNITED. We have to face the future of Chilean agriculture together and for that, we want to do, from the small producer, we want to make it big. This match is won as a team. We want Farming Family Farming to also be able to sell their products, both in Chile and in international markets, ”he said.
The seminar featured an analysis of the water issue of a panel of experts
In addition, the agricultural authority called to continue supporting the formation of cooperatives to support small farmers. “Our great project is the formation of modern cooperatives, which can go out to compete. This year 40 cooperatives have been formed in a few months, we have advanced much faster than we had thought. And we are going to do it just like other countries, such as New Zealand, Holland and other countries, whose agriculture is mostly made up of small producers, ”said Walker.
During 2019, Minagri has an 40% more budget allocated in its associative instruments. This budget increase has been reflected in a better scope and coverage of these programs and instruments, reaching more than 600 groups. This means that there are new associative groups being created and others that are being supported, which were not before, as well as accessing new markets, new technologies and financing.
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