Yesterday, the Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Walker, announced that the government had decided to declare an agricultural emergency in the Region of Valparaiso due to the water shortage that affects the area. "We have signed the decree that officially declares this agricultural emergency due to water scarcity," said he said. According to Walker, “the region is experiencing a very complicated situation. We have a 75% precipitation deficit and are facing one of the most complicated years of the last 60 years. ” “50 thousand animals have been affected by the drought. This region has one hundred thousand hectares under irrigation. It is one of the country's most important exporting agricultural regions and we have to see how to ensure the irrigation of an important part of these one hundred thousand hectares and we also have to inform that our reservoirs are at a 50% capacity,” he added. “We are not going to leave the farmers alone, we are going to support them to the extent of our resources. I think this is a very important action where we recognize that there is a water scarcity issue here, there is an agricultural emergency and we the Government must do something about it,” said Walker. Walker said the agricultural emergency in the region will last until December 31 and added that they were going to visit the area. "Today we are going to be with the fruit producers in the Los Andes area. It is still very difficult to quantify the level of losses we can have in agriculture in the Valparaiso Region. We have to carry out a very thorough cadastre,” he said. "We are starting a very detailed operation to find out the economic consequences that not having significant rainfall in the next three months might have," he said. Previously, the Executive had also declared an agricultural emergency for the region of Coquimbo given the harsh effects of the drought in that area. Source - https://www.freshplaza.com