Climate change will force farmers to consider the importance of irrigation

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"Climate change is changing traditional ways of farming and will force farmers to consider the need and importance of irrigation. Our goal is to point out the necessity of solving problems with the infrastructure of hydromelioration facilities, the use of modern irrigation systems and technologies, as well as innovative software solutions. The state of the irrigation system to ensure the water source for irrigation and their restoration will have an impact on the food security of Slovakia and the prices of agricultural products on our counters during the current climate changes," said Pavol Findura, director of SUA University Farm, at the opening of the event.

In the recent past, more than 360,000 hectares of agricultural land were irrigated in Slovakia, currently 60,000 hectares are being irrigated. As the director of the state company Hydromeliorácie Peter Rusňák informed, the company manages 461 irrigation pumping stations, of which about 156 are operational. The state currently owns 5,258 km of drainage and 254 km of irrigation canals. "The irrigation infrastructure is destroyed, robbed, and large investments must be made in it," emphasized P. Rusňák. He also interpreted the recent words of the Minister of Agriculture that for the purpose of developer construction (increasing individual housing construction), hydromelioration facilities will not be privatized. He also drew attention to the new contractual conditions for the lessees of land reclamation facilities, including conditions for terminating the lease if it is not used for irrigation purposes, or extending the lease for 10 years in the case of investment in state property.

Part of the event was the presentation of the created irrigation structure at the SUA University Farm in Oponice. Land irrigation together with the Oponice irrigation pumping station was built in 1997. Four years ago, the irrigation pumping station was reconstructed and a comprehensive restoration of the pumps was done. The station is semi-automated and more energy efficient compared to the original state. Currently, the University Farm irrigates about 280 ha of agricultural land. It has linear and pivot sprinklers. As emphasized by the Farm manager Pavol Findura, water in the soil must be looked at comprehensively, irrigation is only a supplement to cultivation technologies. Healthy soil is the biggest reservoir of water.

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