The Government has convened for tomorrow Thursday an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers in which the consequences of the drought and measures to counteract it will be discussed. This was announced this Wednesday by Moncloa, which specified that it will be focused on “addressing a set of measures with which to continue facing the consequences of the drought in Spain”, which has already caused, according to Agrosegur, the “biggest accident in the history of agricultural insurance”.

The lack of rain in Spain continues to reduce the reserve of the reservoirs, which this week have lost 406 cubic hectometres, which represents 0.7%, as reported this week by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, which indicates that Currently, the reservoirs hold 27,417 cubic hectometres, which is why they are at 48.9% of their total capacity.

Thus, at this time, 2023 is the fifth year with less water stored in reservoirs since there are records. In week 19 of 1994, the reservoirs were practically as they are now, at 48.39% of their capacity; a year earlier, in 1993, at 44.58%; and even in 1992 they stood at 46.48% of their total capacity. Those four years, from 1992 to 1995, were the years with the least reserved water since there are records.

The first quarter of this year was the driest in the whole of Spain since the national historical rainfall series began in 1961, which increases the situation of long-term meteorological drought in which the country has been immersed since the end of 2022. The historical record of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), collected by Servimedia, indicates that between January and April of this year, 112.4 liters per square meter of rainfall were collected in Spain, with which this quarter becomes the less rainy since there are records.

The largest claim in the history of agricultural insurance

Agricultural losses continue to skyrocket due to low rainfall. In 2022, the Association of Young Farmers (Asaja) estimated the sector’s losses at 8,000 million for that year and insured Five days They hope that this year’s will be worse.

Insurers also estimate record losses. Agroseguro affirms that this year’s drought is the biggest loss in the history of agricultural insurance with losses than in the dry herbaceous -cereals, legumes, potatoes…- and the compensation would amount to 300 million euros. The figure would exceed the previous worst record of 2012 by 30% and the 220 million euros paid in 2022 for the frost suffered at the beginning of April.

Agroseguro contemplates that the damaged area will comfortably reach 1.5 million hectares, two thirds of the total insured. The damage assessment will be carried out in parallel and coordinated with the collection work, which will start in mid-May in the earliest producing areas and will end at the end of July in the latest ones.

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