About 400,000 dollars to be invested in developing irrigation system in Moldova

Chisinau, 31 January /MOLDPRES/ - The Sustainable Development Fund of Moldova (SDF Moldova) this year will allocate about 400,000 dollars for investment projects, in order to extend the areas of irrigation in Moldova. The SDF Moldova executive director, Valentina Badrajan, made statements to this effect at a today’s meeting with the participation of farmers, public authorities and development partners. The participants in the event discussed the restoration of Moldova’s irrigation system.     

The money will be meant for extending the irrigation areas in the zone of the ten already constructed systems, as well as for the partial rehabilitation of new systems placed on the Dniester and Prut rivers.

Nevertheless, the participants in the event noted that possibilities of irrigation were not fully turned to account. Although the restored irrigation infrastructure allows the irrigation of more than 12,000 hectares, only about 2,000 hectares were irrigated in 2018. According to specialists, this situation is caused by the dividing into lots of the irrigable farmlands, insufficiency of irrigation equipments, non-adoption of intensive technologies for the production of agricultural crops with added value, such as fruits, berries and vegetables.    

In the context, SDF Moldova and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which provide assistance to the irrigation sector, expressed willingness to back farmers from Moldova to identify funds for purchasing equipments for irrigation and extending the irrigated areas. Trainings will also be held with the support of development partners, to identify profitable agricultural crops and modern production technologies.   

Attending the event, the secretary general of the State Chancellery, Liliana Palii, said that the modern irrigation infrastructure provided to farmers real solutions to diminish the losses triggered by drought. “Moldova’s government is interested in extending the experience gained in the efficient management of the irrigation systems,” Palii stressed.    

Tens associations of users of water for irrigation, from the area of the systems restored by the U.S. Government, have been set up in Moldova so far. These associations have been created by farmers who owned farmlands in areas of the irrigation systems which were to be rehabilitated. During 2010-2018, about 90 million dollars was earmarked from means of the U.S. Government. The money was turned to account within the USAID High Value Agriculture Activity Project in Moldova.