Farmers to lose 100 million cubic meters of water, ban on garden watering may be next in line to go

The Water Authority announced yesterday it would reduce the amount of water available for agricultural use by 22 percent, or 100 million cubic meters. The cuts are expected to dry up 60,000 dunams of groves and orchards, and 40,000 dunams of greenhouses in the southern coastal plain and Negev.

In response, Galilee farmers said they have begun preparations for diverting streams to their fields and orchards.

Ahikam Bar Levi, director-general of the Galilee Development Authority, is coordinating efforts among farmers in the north to oppose the cuts. If the government does not compensate the farmers, he said, "there won't be water in the streams of the Galilee throughout the summer."

The result, he said, would be "the destruction of the livelihood of an entire area, which forms the northern front of the country's defense."

Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon and a group of agricultural groups are suing the government, asking for NIS 2.6 for every cubic meter of water that has been cut.

Simhon said the government's move contradicts its own announcement at the beginning of the decade, when it cut 55 percent from the water allocation to farmers, that no further reductions would be made.

The current cut will leave farmers with 350 million cubic meters of treated water, around 35 percent less than they had at the beginning of the decade.

In addition, the government has decided to cut 15 percent, or 20 million cubic meters, from the quota of high-quality treated water, intended to water a variety of crops in the south of the country.

By the end of next month, the Water Authority is expected to announce whether it will institute a full ban on watering public and private green spaces, dependent on whether this winter is as dry as the last four.

The total savings from the prohibition is expected to be 180 million cubic meters.

"The scope of the cuts will match the scope of the crisis," Water Authority spokesman Uri Shor said.

"The public must know that without painful steps, water won't reach our faucets next year."