Kakhovka canal supplied water to more than half a million hectares of land in the south and east of Ukraine, so the problem of irrigation will be the biggest in agriculture, its solution will take three to seven years, said Minister of Agricultural Policy Nicholas Solsky in the air of the telethon “United News”.
“The consequences of the cessation of irrigation are much larger. Not half a million hectares, but a million and a half hectares will not be used (for farming) to the fullest extent. It takes three to five to seven years to restore irrigation. And it should be a priority. For this is not only an issue of agribusiness, ecology, but also a social one. Farmers maintain social life in neighboring villages, pay taxes, pay landlords, who are mostly elderly people, for their shares”, said the Minister.
According to him, lands without irrigation systems will also suffer – farmers will have no working capital to cultivate them.
Solskyy reminded that farmers in the south of Ukraine used to get their main and stable income from crops from fields that had irrigation systems.
The Minister also noted that the Kakhovka reservoir was the source of two irrigation and water supply systems – the Kakhovka system and the North Crimean Canal. These systems were built based on water levels to minimize the use of electricity for pumps. Now the water level has dropped, so water simply does not reach the systems. To raise it, it is necessary to restore the dam.
