AgraME News
Moldova to receive millions to restore irrigation systems
The Repupblic of Moldova and the World Bank are expected to sign a USD$25 million loan agreement this May, the money to be used to restore the country’s irrigation systems.
Earlier, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry stated the World Bank loan funds would be used to rehabilitate three centralized irrigation systems capable of supplying water from the Dniester and Prut rivers to approximately 7,000 hectares (ha) of agricultural land. The development of irrigated agriculture, along with animal husbandry and the processing industry, are declared as top priorities for the government department.
According to EastFruit, an information and analytics platform for the growth of the horticulture business, currently, the state agency Apele Moldovei has 30 more or less functional centralized irrigation systems. The bulk of them was transferred to the operational management of 35 non-governmental organizations – Water Users Associations for Irrigation AUAI. In 2023, only 18 centralized irrigation systems supplied water to farmland.
Ten irrigation systems in the basins of the Dniester and Prut rivers restored in the middle of the last decade under the Compact Program funded by the US Millennium Challenge Corporation worked the most intensively. These systems are capable of supplying water to 10,000 ha. Last year, with their help, AUAI member farmers irrigated about 7,000 ha of plantations.
In total, according to expert estimates, about 30,000-60,000 ha are annually irrigated in Moldova from various water sources (rivers, lakes, artesian wells).
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