“Climate change places Italy as the main office of the danger of desertification in the Mediterranean area; Italian agriculture has a growing need for water, which cannot be satisfied by increasing the extraction of groundwater through wells, because this has dangerous consequences on the hydrogeological balance of already fragile soils; To do this, we ask the policy to make precise investment choices in favor of collective irrigation such as that managed by the irrigation and regeneration consortia, an international example of innovation. Water is everyone's resource and, as such, it must be managed in the name of subsidiarity, counteracting individual choices, which can affect the layout of the territory. It is a choice of sustainability, fundamental to face the community's choices that, like the Ecological Outflow, would penalize the Italian primary sector, favoring obscurantist approaches. Without water there can be no agriculture and agriculture is food for everyone. "

To once again highlight the dangers of "well deregulation" and the need for strong attention in Europe is the National Association of Consortiums for the Management and Protection of Territory and Irrigation Waters (ANBI) through the words of the Director General, Massimo Gargano, who spoke at a conference on the future of irrigation, organized in Arezzo by the Alto Valdarno reclamation consortium. On this occasion, the new president of the Tuscany Region, Eugenio Giani, wanted to sign, among the first acts, the Pact for Water, committing to create new irrigation infrastructures, overcoming the logic of autonomous supply, which damages the environment, without innovation margins, significant costs for agricultural companies by reducing their income and negatively affecting the competitiveness of production in the markets.

“Equally significant - continues the general director of ANBI - is the repeated commitment of the Minister, Teresa Bellanova, to strengthen the internal areas and reverse the trend of abandonment, promoting, through agricultural multifunctionality, the resilience and vitality of the areas rural areas with a view to safeguarding the territory. In the future strategy of the national system, it can also be an important job opportunity. "

Bearing this in mind and anticipating the commitments of the Recovery Fund, the regeneration and irrigation consortiums have presented to the Government 858 final and executive projects, that is, construction works, for the efficiency of the national hydraulic network; could guarantee more than 21,000 jobs, thanks to an investment of approximately 4,000 million and 339 million euros.

"It is a concrete contribution for a country, which is in the last places in capacity to use European resources. After us, there is only Croatia, Romania and Spain", concludes Gargano.