IAN & SPAIN

The financing for the project will be funded  by Feder, Feder-Cohesion 2007-2013 and EAFRD.
The Council of Ministers approved on Friday 30 November a collaboration agreement between the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the State Infrastructure Agricultural Society (SEIASA), to carry out the modernisation plan for irrigation on a national scale, totaling an investment sum of 696.5 million euros.
Of this, 208.9 million will be financed by SEIASA and another 250.5 million will be financed by the European Union through EU Funds (ERDF, Cohesion 2007-2013 ERDF and EAFRD). The remaining funding will be distributed between the irrigation Communities, which will provide 206.3 million and the Autonomous Communities, with 30.8 million.
The investments planned are: Andalusia (EUR 243.6 million), Castilla and Leon (173 600 000), Aragon (75.1 million), Valencia (65.4 million euros), Murcia (52, 8 million), Extremadura (43.3 million), Catalonia (35.8 million). Castilla La-Mancha (6.5 million) and Madrid (200,000 euros). In total, they plan to conduct 87 different projects in those regions, which include 27 in Andalusia, Valencia 16, Castilla y León 14 and 7 in Aragón.The efficient and rational use of water and the implementation of new technologies in irrigation, is the impulse behind the government policy to update and implant irrigation systems in Spain. As Spain is the country that uses most water in Europe and one the most in the world due to its agricultural sector, the urge to improve water resources, coupled with energy efficiency improvements, goes hand in hand with improving the competitiveness of Spanish farms, which will inevitably bring a higher productivity and lower production costs. All good news for the Olive Oil Industry.