IRRIGATION AGRICULTURE AT THE GUADIANA RIVER HIGH BASIN (CASTILLA-LA MANCHA, SPAIN): ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS

Transcription

1 1 IRRIGATION AGRICULTURE AT THE GUADIANA RIVER HIGH BASIN (CASTILLA-LA MANCHA, SPAIN): ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS (April 1997) Gregorio López Sanz Facultad de Ciencias Economicas y Empresariales Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Campus Universitario Albacete (Spain) Phone: ext Fax: Paper prepared for the Workshop on The Use of Water in Sustainable Agriculture, 2-4 june 1997, Albacete (Spain). INTRODUCTION. The paper's objective is to analyze the environmental and socioeconomic impacts derived from agrarian and water policies at the Guadiana River high basin. First, it is concerned with the hydrologic, socioeconomic and agrarian systems, in order to present the relation between development pattern and natural resources degradation. Second, it carries out an institutional analysis on sectorial, organizational and spatial interests. Finally, some policy proposals where different interests -political, agrarian, ecological, industrial, local, regional- interact in a cooperative way, will be drawn. I. DEVELOPMENT PATTERN AND NATURAL RESOURCES DEGRADATION. The study area is a typical Mediterranean agrarian region with extensive dry farming productions -vineyards, winter cereals, olives and sheeps. Historically, farmers have only used the groundwaters through waterwheels actioned by animal-power, that is to say, on a small scale. However, groundwater extractions' anarchical growth from 1970's up to now has resulted in two main environmental injuries: 1) In the Western La Mancha aquifer, the extractions of groundwater has grossly exceeded recharge, in such a way that drainage overflows in Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park and Guadiana River's source have "disappeared". In addition to this, the groundwater

2 2 overexploitation joined to the regulation works on the sources of several rivers -Cigüela, Záncara, Jabalón, Azuer, Guadiana Alto- have dried their beds. 2) In the same way, pumpings on the Campo de Montiel aquifer have affected to the Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park's hydric support. In this area, agriculture has a great economic weight and it is the principal water consumer. But water use must not only be according to the immediate monetary rentability, it is necessary to introduce ecological and socioeconomic considerations in order to keep wetlands and biodiversity, and natural resources which are direct inputs in the human activities -soil fertility, water quantity and quality. Both aspects can be attained simultaneously to assure the survival of the area. The modes of production which take place in real life are characterized by: 1) Crops with high water consumption in summer -corn, sugar beet, alfalfa-, especially during the 80's. 2) Water use through the war of well -rule of capture. This allocation mechanism has several pernicious outcomes: fall in the water table, increase of pumping costs, nitrate groundwater pollution, fertile soil salinity and wetlands desiccation -Tablas de Daimiel National Park and Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park. 3) In the Campo de Montiel, great irrigation farms monopolize most of the water consumption and the equity problems derived from this situation: groundwater pumpings have affected urban supplies and small irrigation farms with previous rights on surface water in Montiel and Villanueva de la Fuente's Valleys and Peñarroya Dam. 4) Destruction and abandonment of the traditional agriculture based in dry farming productions which generally are more respectful with the nature. 5) The water table fall has equity implications. Large irrigators have capacity to make deeper wells and to continue their extractions, whereas small irrigators cannot pursue this strategy. The rules that have led to this panorama are -the causes of the present problems-: 1) Absence of research and information about the interactions and dynamics of the natural resources use. Sometimes, when this information has existed, the social agents have ignored tend to it. 2) The prevalence of the agents' own interests through an open access to the groundwater. 3) National and Common Agricultural Policy have given monetary incentives to grow

3 3 high water consumption crops. 4) Absence of blunt actions on the part of political authorities. Often, environmental policies are superficial and do not approach the roots of the problem. 5) Absence of protests on the part of the civil society -except the ecologists associations-, that denounce the environmental damages and claim a change in the way of human and economic development. In La Mancha, irrigation and wetlands depend on the same resource: groundwater. But it has to be noted that there is an asymetric relationship. In fact, if the water is excessively used by the irrigation land -consumptive use-, in the beginning the wetlands will disappear -there is a rival consumption- and later will be the irrigation agriculture's turn. On the other hand, the water use on the wetland's part -transitory and no-consumptive use- does not endanger the agrarian activity -there is a non-rival consumption. The question is to ensure an optimum water allocation between areas and uses. It is not need to be a radical ecologist to defend La Mancha's wetlands. By maintaining water in wetlands, the area's future will be assure, since this fact means that the aquifer -the natural resource which permits the life in Western La Mancha- enjoys good health. I would like to defend the agrarian activity of the reputation's loss suffered during the last years. Agriculture is the only economic activity capable to create life starting from land, water and sun. Moreover, all the traditional agriculture's inputs are renewable. However, both the natural resources' unconcious use and its deliberate manipulation, have placed agriculture on the black list of the dangerous activities for the environment. I understand and support the agrarian policy's purpose: to sustain the farmers' income. But this outcome could be obtained using another forms more respectful with nature, the social equity and the agrarian activity. In La Mancha groundwater irrigation lands there exist a serious missallocation of scarce resources. First, there is uncertainty over the boundaries of various claims: right to a reasonable water table, right to an aceptable water quality, right to maintain the wetlands' activity, right to grow crops in irrigation lands, etc. In order to stabilize the participants' expectations and behaviors, it is need to establish a new institutional structure over water, land and nature. The enforcement of an institutional structure which clarifies all parts' rights and duties will permit to achieve an improvement in productive efficiency. Second, natural resources' relative prices do not reflect all pertinent social costs. If water price is undervalued, there is a water allocation biased to agrarian use against ecological sustainability. If water price considers all the values associated with its strategic character, the change in relative prices will lead to other resources'

4 4 allocation. Third, a greater level of ecological sustainability supposes to be sensitive to changes in the society's tastes -environmental quality, worry about future, respect to the rest of living beings-, that is, a reallocation of economic opportunities. II. POLICIES CARRIED OUT: POWER AND INTERESTS. Some modes of production can remain along time, but "when economics and social conditions change then the existing institutional structure may no longer be appropriate" (Bromley, 1989, 110). Therefore, natural resources' policies are not an attack against the economic efficiency but an answer to the new social conditions. II.1. Policies carried out to avoid the socioeconomic and environmental degradation. II.1.1. The Guadiana Hydrographic Confederation's policy. At the end of 80's, the aquifers 23 and 24 were declared overexploited, establishing water use limitations in order to reduce water consumption below natural recharge. In addition, hydraulics authorities adopted measures to recover the water table and the natural working of the hydrologic system. However, these restrictions were not observed by a large number of irrigators. Moreover, in spite of to be forbidden, in the last years have been drilled a lot of new wells. This failure shows the incapacity to overcome the problems through unilateral policies that have not in account the several interests in conflict. II.1.2. The Castilla-La Mancha Community's policy. In 1993, the European Union approved to the Castilla-La Mancha Goverment an agrienvironmental program -AEP- on aquifers 23 and 24. Basically, it supposed income compensation payments to farmers who reduced their water consumption through crop's change. The AEP has largely allowed to reduce the water consumption, but its outcomes are limited by some factors: 1) The AEP is a provisional policy -only five years- which does not consider a sustainable alternative for the future. That is to say, it does not approach the irrigation stabilization by means of a structural strategy. 2) The income compensation is a direct function of the irrigation surface, in such a way that great farms have monopolized these subsidies, with negative implications on income

5 5 distribution. 3) The irrigators communities have not actively and responsibility participated in the management of the AEP. 4) The AEP has not spent any money in farmers' agri-environmental training, something basic in order to overcome this impasse. II.1.3. The Ministery of Environment's policy. In 1995, the Ministery of Environment presented the project of the aqueduct Tajo-La Mancha in order to transfer water resources from the Tajo basin to the Guadiana high basin. The project is justified by the quantitative and qualitative overexploitation of the aquifer 23 and the very little possibilities of recovery. The objective is to assure the urban and ecological water supplies -no the irrigation agriculture- through a vast pipes network. However, there are some criticisms to the project that advise to reconsider it: 1) From the environmental point of view, the project seeks to replace the natural hydric network. That is to say, there is a conception of the water as an element disconnected of the nature. 2) The project assumes that there is not solution for the aquifers' recovery. Therefore, it gives up the more easy and cheap way to assure the water supplies in the future. 3) The water transfer is a dilatory instrument to hide the water social scarcity -no the water physic scarcity- and to avoid the true problem: the excessive water use with respect to the renewable resources. II.2. Power and interests. The concern to recuperate the wetlands has been the only argument to put into practice a sustainability plan in La Mancha. But there is a more important reason: the area's future can be only assured through the conservation of all natural resources -water, land, wetlands. However, some interest groups could go against this model's change, so it will need to find the way to win the support of these groups to overtake the required change. 1) First, there is not a strong ecologist movement in La Mancha. Behind this fact there exists lack of information about the real damages, since groundwater's stock cannot be observed. The visible sign of the damage is the wetlands' desiccation. 2) Government is between the sword and the wall. Government's policies have been the

6 6 cause of the current situation. They have supported high water consumption crops and the irrigation lands increase in an anarchical way. A radical change in this policy would suppose a political cost now, but continuing the present condescending attitude will imply a great ecological unbalance and a higher political, economic, environmental and social costs. 3) Farmers are submerged in the confusion because the agrarian policy is not capable to define a basic rules that allow a long run planning. The sort run rules do not consider a very important aspect: the land's natural conditions. The task is to give confidence to farmers about the appropriateness of a new model to organize the relations between agriculture, society and nature. Of course, this new framework must not imply a loss of monetary income on the part of farmers. 4) Commercial interests risen around the irrigation activities can be an impediment to change the model. These firms could reconvert their activities toward the irrigation's new technologies which will be need to balance the future water supply with the future water consumption. The age of the great hydrologic works has finished. Now, it is the place of the regional management projects where the appropriated technology is a crucial problem. Whatever region has some specific characteristics -soil, sun, minerals, water, land tenure, farmer's psicology, natural spaces- which need a particular management model. 5) Great farmers -landowners which do not work themselves land- can be against the proposed reform. The new institutional framework must take into account the household agriculture because is the only capable to maintain the population and ecological balances. The great farmers' surplus is not reinvestmented in agriculture but that goes out the sector toward especulative business. These landowners have been the main beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy due to the great extension of their farms -since the communitarian supports have been function of the farm's surface. For example, most of the irrigation lands belong to great landowners in Campo de Montiel aquifer. Up to now, this conflict of interests has rested on a private property regime on groundwater without regulation, in such a way that externalities have increased. The great water stocks extracted between seemed endless. But when overexploitation's first signs appeared, the dream came down. Despite these results, the answer was not to look for other exploitation scheme. On the contrary, extractive behaviours reached a greater height trying to obtain water before the neighbour. The institutional framework has the task to balance different interest groups "in accord

7 7 with the changing priorities of society" (Fox, 1976, 746). The problem is to decide what are "the changing priorities of society". Can the minorities interests to reach voice and vote at time of taking decisions?. Status quo is overrepresented in organizations which decide water policy. Thus, it will be difficult to articulate mechanisms in order to support the rising legitimate interests. The negotiations among interest groups may well produce compromises which result in an inefficient use of resources. Therefore, sometimes collective action is not a desirable happening since it can suppose a way to maintain antidemocratic positions. III. PROPOSALS FOR A NEW POLICY. In a place as frenetic as our world, it is easy to fall inside a vegetative position: the system is designed to envelop society under a veil of ignorance and blind faith in reproduction mechanisms. Therefore, we need to wake up through great doses of information and social consciousness to achieve institutional changes. We also must institute a collective action, but I am realist. A common property regime supposes to change a lot of things: culture, incentives, behaviour, power relations, etc., and it is difficult. The other choice is to prolongate current state of the art despite its malevolent effects. III.1. Replenishing the La Mancha's aquifers. In order to replenish the La Mancha's aquifers through the reduction into the farms' groundwater extractions, basically, we can see the matter from two different points of view. First, to compensate permanently the farmers by the private income loss due to their smaller water consumption after regulation -assuming the same enterprises, techniques and the agrarian subsidy system. Second, to compensate temporally but establishing a changing both in the enterprises, the techniques and the agriculture's supports, in such a way that will be possible to reach a sustainable mode of production. I advocate the second proposal because it is the only way to assure the area's sustainability: the agrarian development model is exhausted and the present groundwater consumption cannot be maintained indefinetely. The feasible extraction -steady-state- is not equal to the total refill. A minimum ecological flow is need in order to keep the wetlands. In the case of Western La Mancha aquifer, it is need to refill the extracted stocks -about hm 3 -, before reaching the steady-state. There are two possibilities, basically. First, to reduce the pumpings to 150 hm 3 /year, below the natural recharge (250 hm 3 /year), in such a way that exists an excedent (100 hm 3 /year) enough to

8 replenish the aquifer. Second -complementary to the first-, to transfer water resources from other basins in order to sustitute the irrigation supplies from groundwater to surface water. 8 III.2. Proposals for changing the enterprises. The high water consumption crops use more than the 50% of the water. Also, some of these are surplus products in the European Union. Therefore, there are consecutive social costs: inputs -fuel, fertilizers, loans, water, electricity- are subsidized, the prices paid to the farmers are guaranteed above world prices and after the harvest, it is need to spend more money to store the surplus products which has not been consumed. So, 1) Corn, fodders and sugar beet have a water consumption too high in an arid ecosystem as La Mancha. This is a luxe because we are growing surplus products, therefore, they must be eliminated. 2) In the vegetables -tomato, melon, aubergine, pimiento, garlic-, the La Mancha region must try to reach a better position in the markets. These are crops with a high monetary rentability and labour and water-intensive. 3) With regard to the wine, the European Union has wine's overproduction both the quality lower wines and the unbottled wines. Therefore, the policy may reorganize the vineyard surface with quality varieties because it is a low water requirement crop and it is very good adapted to the La Mancha's physic and climatic characteristics. 4) The winter cereals in dry farming -wheat and barley- have been traditional crops of this area. These adapt their biological growth to the land's natural conditions. They use the soil natural humidity during the winter and the spring and they are harvested at the beginning of the summer, when the soil's humidity reservations are nulls. They must be maintained as an ecological crop which is perfectly interrelationated with another autochthonous resource: the sheep cattle have tradicionally grazed in the stubble fields. In summary, the Common Agricultural Policy will have to adapt to new realities and challenges in terms of consumer demand and preferences, international trade developments and the diferential conditions of the European rural areas. To achieve such objectives, farmers and rural world must not be harmed in the adjustment process. III.3. Proposals for changing the techniques. 1) The majority of the irrigation lands use the sprinkling system. In many cases it is

9 9 possible to obtain a higher irrigation efficiency through dripping systems and irrigation advising services. 2) To establish irrigation cooperatives and common property regimes between the neighbour farmers to avoid the war of well that reduces the well yields and increases pumping and investment costs. 3) To reduce the nitrogenous fertilizers' use which supposes groundwater nitrate pollution. 4) Until now, farmers have not assumed the agrarian products' commercialization. The harvest have normally been sold to the commercial intermediaries. So, the great part of the harvest's monetary surplus has went to the intermediaries' hands. If farmers want to obtain greater net income, they must assume commercialization tasks. III.4. Conclusions. In accordance with the shown previously, it could be desirable: 1) To coordinate research and management tasks. In this way, policy makers and economic agents could take decisions in a reduced uncertainty framework. 2) To procure clear and real information to the society about the purposes, means and externalities of the policies proposals. 3) To undertake institutional reforms towards a common property regime of the water resources where the cooperative behaviour replace the individual interest. 4) To exile the idea of an agrarian activity socially discredited by the community. The agriculture and the rural world are the life basis, their development must be an example of respect to the nature. 5) To avoid the confusion between permanent natural characteristics of a territory with the changing rentability conditions derived from markets. 6) To change the philosophy of the agriculture assistance. The green revolution has required a great financial support in the rich countries, and it has resulted in serious environmental damages. The new policy must support the rural world as a place where vital activities are development for the society. I know this view is very idealistic and utopian, but I think that utopia is not unattainable by definition. Utopia is attainable when the institutional framework changes. In this case, it is possible to liberate the social forces that are capable to transform the exhausted model. To be

10 10 coherent with our ideas requires compromise, because without compromise there is no action, without action there is no social change and without social change we are jailed in our own prison: institutions turn useless, injustices continue and life converts in a contemplative exercise. REFERENCES BROMLEY, Daniel W. (1989): Economic Interests and Institutions. The Conceptual Foundations of Public Policy, Basil Blackwell, Oxford. FOX, Irving K. (1976): "Institutions for Water Management in a Changing World", en Natural Resources Journal, vol. 16, n1 4, pp

11 SUMMARY This paper is concerned with the management of the Guadiana River high basin's water resources. Castilla-La Mancha region in general, and Western La Mancha and the Campo de Montiel in particular, are areas where agriculture has a great economic weight. This activity is the principal water consumer, so any regional development planning must consider the water management in agriculture. Water use must not only be according to the immediate economic rentability, it is necessary to introduce ecological and social considerations in order to reach two objectives which can be attained simultaneously. First, to keep wetlands and wildlife. Second, to maintain natural resources which are direct inputs in the economic activities (soil fertility, water) in order to assure the area's future. Unfortunately, the background cannot offer a scene more desolating. Technical advances and social permissivity have endangered the nature. The extreme damage situation in Las Tablas de Daimiel and Lagunas de Ruidera is only the iceberg tip. If there is no a radical change in human behaviour, harms will be irreversible. Groundwater extractions' anarchical growth from 1970's up to now has resulted in a long list of environmental injuries and social problems: - Water table fall and increasing in pumping costs. - In the Western La Mancha aquifer's central part an important pumping cone has appeared. This has changed the natural groundwater flows in such a way that natural overflows in Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park and Guadiana River's source have ceased. Therefore, Las Tablas de Daimiel (the main interior wetland and waterfowl habitat in Spain) has been dried. - In the same way, pumpings on the Campo de Montiel aquifer have affected the Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park, the urban supplies and the historical irrigation lands with surface water in Montiel and Villanueva de la Fuente's valleys. - Pumpings on Lagunas de Ruidera's source (great farms) have diminished supplies to Peñarroya dam, therefore, small farmers cannot irrigate their lands. - Water use per surface unit has been elevated since in this area have grew surplus crops with high water consumption: corn, sugar beet, fooders, alfalfa, etc. - Irrigation in arid areas (as La Mancha) using low quality water has resulted in salinity problems and the abandonment of lands. - The water table fall has equity implications. Large irrigators have capacity to make deeper wells and to continue their extractions. Whereas, small irrigators cannot follow this

12 strategy, and they lose the access to the water. - The use of fertilizers in irrigated lands has resulted in groundwater pollution by nitrates. This paper will critize the mechanical and partial methodological focus which has been used by conventional economics and agriculture. The idea is to support an integrated and multidisciplinar methodological focus according to the biophysic space where human activities are developed. To understand the working and interactions which take place in biosphere is an essential task in order to define a management framework that permits us to reach ecological and economic objectives. I advocate a view of multidimensionality-not monetary reductionism, cooperation-not confrontation, both in the understanding of the problem and in its solution.

13 IRRIGATION AGRICULTURE AT THE GUADIANA RIVER HIGH BASIN (CASTILLA-LA MANCHA, SPAIN): ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC IMPACTS OBJECTIVE: To analyze the environmental and socioeconomic impacts derived from the agrarian and water policies. SCHEME: 1) The hydrologic, socioeconomic and agrarian systems: to set up a relation between the development pattern and the natural resources degradation. interests. 2) Institutional analysis on sectorial, organizational and spatial 3) Proposals for a new policy: cooperation vs individualism. 1

14 I. DEVELOPMENT PATTERN AND NATURAL RESOURCES DEGRADATION. - Typical Mediterranean agrarian region (vineyards, winter cereals, olives, sheeps). - Historically, farmers have only used the groundwaters trough waterwheels actioned by animal-power (on a small scale). - However, groundwater extraction's anarchical growth from 1970's up to now has resulted in two main environmental injuries: 1) In the Western La Mancha aquifer, drainage overflows in las Tablas de Daimiel National Park have "disappeared". 2) In the Campo de Montiel aquifer, pumpings have affected to the Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park's hydric support. 2

15 - The modes of production which take place in real life are characterized by: 1) Crops with high water consumption (corn, sugar beet, alfalfa), specially in the 80's. 2) Water use through the war of well (rule of capture). This allocation mechanism has several pernicious outcomes: fall in the water table, increase of pumping costs, nitrate groundwater pollution, fertile soil salinity and wetlands desiccation. 3) In the Campo de Montiel, great irrigation farms monopolize most of the water consumption. They have affected urban supplies and small irrigation farms with previous rights on surface water. 4) Destruction and abandonment of the traditional agriculture. 5) The water table fall has equity implications: large irrigators have capacity to make deeper wells and to continue their extractions, whereas small irrigators cannot pursue this strategy. 3

16 - The rules that have led to this panorama are: 1) Absence of research and information about the interactions and dynamics of the natural resources use. Sometimes, when this information has existed, the social agents have ignored tend to it. 2) The prevalence of the agent's own interests through an open access to the groundwater. 3) Monetary incentives of the National and Common Agricultural Policy. 4) Absence of blunt actions on the part of political authorities: environmental policies are superficial and do not approach the roots of the problem. 5) Absence of protests on the part of the civil society, that denounce the environmental damages. 4

17 - I understand and support the agrarian policy's purpose (to sustain the farmers' income). But this outcome could be obtained using another means more respectful with nature, the social equity and the agrarian activity. - In La Mancha groundwater irrigation lands there exist a serious missallocation of scarce resources: 1) There is uncertainty over the boundaries of various claims: right to a reasonable water table, right to an aceptable water quality, rigth to maintain the wetlands' activity, right to grow crops in irrigation lands, etc. 2) The natural resources' relative prices do not reflect all pertinent social costs. 3) To reach a greater level of ecological sustainability supposes to be sensitive to the changes in the society's tastes. 5

18 POLICIES CARRIED OUT: POWER AND INTERESTS - The Guadiana Hydrographic Confederation's policy: Restrictions on the water use were not observed by a large number of irrigators. In spite of to be forbidden, in the last years have been drilled a lot of new wells. - The Castilla-La Mancha Community's policy: Agrienvironmental program (AEP) on aquifers 23 and 24. It supposes income compensation payments to farmers who reduce their water consumption through crop's change. The AEP has allowed to reduce the water consumption, but its outcomes are limited by some factors: 1) The AEP is a provisional policy. It does not approach the irrigation stabilization by means of a structural strategy. 2) The income compensation is a direct function of the irrigation surface, in such a way that great farms have monopolized these subsidies 3) The irrigators communities have not actively and responsibility participated in the management of the AEP. 4) The AEP has not spent any money in farmers' agrienvironmental training. 6

19 - The Ministery of Environment's policy: In 1995, it was presented the project of the aqueduct Tajo-La Mancha in order to transfer water resources from the Tajo basin to the Guadiana high basin. The objective is to assure the urban and ecological water supplies -no the irrigation agriculture- through a vast pipes network. However, there are some criticisms to the project that advise to reconsider it: 1) From the environmental point of view, the project seeks to replace the natural hydric network. There is a conception of the water as an element disconnected of the nature. 2) The project assumes that there is not solution for the aquifers' recovery. Therefore, it gives up the more easy and cheap way to assure the water supplies in the future. 3) The water transfer is a dilatory instrument to hide the true cause of the problem: the excessive water use. 7

20 - Some interest groups could go against this model's change, so it will need to find the way to win the support of these groups: 1) First, there is not a strong ecologist movement in La Mancha. Behind this fact there exists lack of information about the real damages. 2) Government is between the sword and the wall. Government's policies have been the cause of the current situation. They have supported high water consumption crops and the irrigation lands increase in an anarchical way. 3) Farmers are submerged in the confusion because the agrarian policy is not capable to define a basic rules that allow a long run planning. 4) Commercial interests risen around the irrigation activities can be an impediment to change the model. These firms could reconvert their activities toward the irrigation's new technologies which will be need to balance the future water supply with the future water consumption. 5) Great farmers -landowners which do not work themselves land- can be against the proposed reform. The new institutional framework must take into account the household agriculture because is the only capable to maintain the population and ecological balances. 8

21 - Up to now, this conflict of interests has rested on a private property regime on groundwater without regulation, in such a way that externalities have increased. The great water stocks extracted between seemed endless. But when overexploitation's first signs appeared, the dream came down. Despite these results, the answer was not to look for other exploitation scheme. On the contrary, extractive behaviours reached a greater height trying to obtain water before the neighbour. 9

22 III. PROPOSALS FOR A NEW POLICY. - In order to replenish the La Mancha's aquifers through the reduction into the farms' groundwater extractions, basically, we can see the matter from two different points of view: 1) First, to compensate permanently the farmers by the private income loss due to their smaller water consumption after regulation -assuming the same enterprises, techniques and the agrarian subsidy system. 2) Second, to compensate temporally but establishing a changing both in the enterprises, the techniques and the agriculture's supports, in such a way that will be possible to reach a sustainable mode of production. I advocate this proposal because it is the only way to assure the area's sustainability: the agrarian development model is exhausted and the present groundwater consumption cannot be maintained indefinetely. 10

23 - Proposals for changing the enterprises. The high water consumption crops use more than the 50% of the water. Also, some of these are surplus products in the European Union. Therefore, there are consecutive social costs: inputs -fuel, fertilizers, loans, water, electricity- are subsidized, the prices paid to the farmers are guaranteed above world prices and after the harvest, it is need to spend more money to store the surplus products which has not been consumed. So, 1) Corn, fodders and sugar beet have a water consumption too high in an arid ecosystem as La Mancha. They must be eliminated because we are growing surplus products. 2) In the vegetables -tomato, melon, aubergine, pimiento, garlic-, the La Mancha region must try to reach a better position in the markets. These are crops with a high monetary rentability and intensive in labour and water-intensive. 3) With regard to the wine, the policy may reorganize the vineyard surface with quality varieties because it is a low water/high labour requirement crop. 4) The winter cereals in dry farming -wheat and barley- have been tradicional crops of this area. They use the soil natural humidity during the winter and the spring, therefore, they must be maintained as an ecological crop. 11

24 In summary, the Common Agricultural Policy will have to adapt to new realities and challenges in terms of consumer demand and preferences, international trade developments and the diferential conditions of the European rural areas. To achieve such objectives, farmers and the rural world must not be harmed in the adjustment process. - Proposals for changing the techniques: 1) The majority of the irrigation lands use the sprinkling system. In many cases it is possible to obtain a higher irrigation efficiency through dripping systems and irrigation advising services. 2) To establish irrigation cooperatives and common property regimes between the neighbour farmers to avoid the war of well that reduces the well yields and increases pumping and investment costs. 3) To reduce the nitrogenous fertilizers' use which supposes groundwater nitrate pollution. 4) Until now, farmers have not assumed the agrarian products' commercialization. So, the great part of the harvest's monetary surplus has went to the intermediaries' hands. If farmers want to obtain greater net income, they must assume commercialization tasks. 12

25 - Conclusions. In accordance with the shown previously, it could be desirable: 1) To coordinate research and management tasks. In this way, policy makers and economic agents could take decisions in a reduced uncertainty framework. 2) To procure clear and real information to the society about the purposes, means and externalities of the policies proposals. 3) To undertake institutional reforms towards a common property regime of the water resources. 4) To exile the idea of an agrarian activity socially discredited by the community. 5) To avoid the confusion between permanent natural characteristics of a territory with the changing rentability conditions derived from markets. 6) To change the philosophy of the agriculture assistance. The new policy must support the rural world as a place where vital 13

26 activities are development for the society. 14

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28 Irrigation agriculture at the Guadiana River high basin (Castilla-La Mancha, Spain): environmental and socioeconomic impacts López Sanz, Gregorio Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain Introduction The paper's objective is to analyze the environmental and socioeconomic impacts derived from agrarian and water policies at the Guadiana River high basin. First, it is concerned with the relation between development pattern and natural resources degradation. Second, some policy proposals where different interests -political, agrarian, ecological, industrial, regional- interact in a cooperative way, will be drawn. Method. The study area is a typical Mediterranean agrarian region with extensive dry farming productions -vineyards, winter cereals, olives and sheeps. Historically, farmers have only used the groundwaters through waterwheels actioned by animal-power, that is to say, on a small scale. However, groundwater extractions' anarchical growth from 1970's up to now has resulted in some environmental and socioeconomic injuries. The modes of production which take place in real life are characterized by: 1) Crops with high water consumption in summer -corn, sugar beet, alfalfa-, especially during the 80's. 2) Water use through the war of well -rule of capture. This allocation mechanism has several pernicious outcomes: fall in the water table, increase of pumping costs, nitrate groundwater pollution, fertile soil salinity and wetlands desiccation -Tablas de Daimiel National Park and Lagunas de Ruidera Natural Park. 3) In the Campo de Montiel, great irrigation farms monopolize most of the water consumption and the equity problems derived from this situation: groundwater pumpings have affected urban supplies and small irrigation farms with previous rights. 4) The water table fall has equity implications. Large irrigators have capacity to make deeper wells and to continue their extractions, whereas small irrigators cannot pursue this strategy. "When economics and social conditions change then the existing institutional structure may no longer be appropriate" (Bromley, 1989, 110). Therefore, natural resources' policies are not an attack against the economic efficiency but an answer to the new social and environmental conditions. At the end of 80's, the aquifers 23 and 24 were declared overexploited by the Guadiana Hydrographic Confederation, establishing water use limitations in order to reduce water consumption below natural recharge. In addition, hydraulics authorities adopted measures to recover the water table and the natural working of the hydrologic system. However, these restrictions were not observed by a large number of irrigators. Moreover, in spite of to be forbidden, in the last years have been drilled a lot of new wells. This failure shows the incapacity to overcome the problems through unilateral policies that have not in account the several interests in conflict. In 1993, the European Union approved to the Castilla-La Mancha Goverment an

29 agri-environmental program -AEP- on aquifers 23 and 24. Basically, it supposed income compensation payments to farmers who reduced their water consumption through crop's change. The AEP has largely allowed to reduce the water consumption, but its outcomes are limited by some factors: 1) The AEP is a provisional policy -only five years- which does not consider a sustainable and structural alternative for the future. 2) The income compensation is a direct function of the irrigation surface, in such a way that great farms have monopolized these subsidies, with negative implications on income distribution. 3) The irrigators communities have not actively and responsibility participated in the management of the AEP. 4) The AEP has not spent any money in farmers' agri-environmental training, something basic in order to overcome this impasse. In 1995, the Ministery of Environment presented the project of the aqueduct Tajo- La Mancha in order to transfer water resources from the Tajo basin to the Guadiana high basin. The project is justified by the quantitative and qualitative overexploitation of the aquifer 23 and the very little possibilities of recovery. The objective is to assure the urban and ecological water supplies -no the irrigation agriculture- through a vast pipes network. However, there are some criticisms to the project that advise to reconsider it: 1) The project seeks to replace the natural hydric network. There is a conception of the water as an element disconnected of the nature. 2) The project assumes that there is not solution for the aquifers' recovery. It gives up the more easy and cheap way to assure the water supplies in the future. Results In summary, the Common Agricultural Policy will have to adapt to new realities and challenges in terms of consumer demand and preferences, international trade developments and the diferential conditions of the European rural areas. To achieve such objectives, farmers and rural world must not be harmed in the adjustment process. In accordance with the shown previously, it could be desirable: 1) To coordinate research and management tasks. In this way, policy makers and economic agents could take decisions in a reduced uncertainty framework. 2) To procure clear and real information to the society about the purposes, means and externalities of the policies proposals. 3) To undertake institutional reforms towards a common property regime of the water resources where the cooperative behaviour replace the individual interest. 4) To exile the idea of an agrarian activity socially discredited by the community. The agriculture and the rural world are the life basis, their development must be an example of respect to the nature. 5) To avoid the confusion between permanent natural characteristics of a territory with the changing rentability conditions derived from markets. 6) To change the philosophy of the agriculture assistance. The green revolution has required a great financial support in the rich countries, and it has resulted in serious environmental damages. The new policy must support the rural world as a place where vital activities are development for the society.

30 References BROMLEY, Daniel W. (1989): Economic Interests and Institutions. The Conceptual Foundations of Public Policy, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.