Moldovan farmers to be able to easier irrigate lands

Chisinau, 16 May /MOLDPRES/ - Farmers will easier get access to the surface waters to irrigate lands. In this respect, the cabinet today approved a draft law which provides for a string of amendments to some legislative acts, including to the law on waters, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.    

According to the draft, agricultural producers will have right to place water engagements and mobile devices on lands adjacent to rivers or water basins for irrigating lands. Earlier, the setting of mobile devices for seizing water to this end has not been allowed.   

Also, the list of acts needed to get environmental authorizations for the use of water for irrigation was reduced. Thus, the passport of the water engagement and the contract on the transportation and reception of residual waters for purification have been excluded. The project establishes that the concerned authorizations will be issued in a maximum term of 30 days, without the process’ procrastination.   

At the same time, the association of water users will be able to receive for free of charge use not only irrigation systems, but also draining systems, in order to be able to evacuate, if needed, the excess water from water basins.   

‘’This was a problem and a question farmers were raising each time when meeting them. I hope very much that we will solve this problem with these changes. Everybody should understand that the lakes from Moldova are preponderantly oriented to and the priority No 1 is the irrigation and then for breeding fish and so on and so forth,’’ Pavel Filip said.  

The contravention code was also completed with sanctions for the leaseholders of water basins who will impede the access of farmers to the placement and use of water engagements for irrigating crops. At the same time, fish breeders will be banned from evacuating water from water basins to carry out various works, in  favour of the reusing the water for the irrigation needs of farmers.