Sir,
With the water situation being rather critical and with most of the projections that it will not improve any time soon, can Cyprus support a farming industry?
You can blame it on global warming or on the planning of the past governments, but the simple truth is, Cyprus is running out of water. We tend to focus only on tourism, but this shortage also affects the building industry, restaurants, hospitals, schools, and the local resident. What company in their right mind will want to invest in Cyprus with its current water problem? Why should airlines want to sign contracts when they won’t have any guarantees concerning the availability of water? Translation, will people want to spend money at a place that cannot guarantee having access to water (salt water not included)?
The answer is most definitely NO! Who would want to buy a house here? The €1,000,000 lot that you’ve been waiting to sell is now worth €500. Why? No water, trees are dying or are dead. Congratulations, you now own a clump of dirt. All of us can do more and conserve water, but can the country afford to support industries that are better off being outsourced? For example farming. I grew up on a farm. It was profitable. We did have insurance against hail and other natural disasters, but not man made disasters. A couple of my uncles were not successful farmers so they went into other fields, quite successfully I might add.
At present, Cyprus cannot afford to have an agricultural society here, even if it is below 5 per cent. Cyprus can fulfill all of its food needs from the European Community as well as from countries in this region. One of your own stories stated that the government wrote off €4,310,000 debt owed by farmers for water usage. The article further quoted an official saying, “It was taken into account that for a second year running, many farmers have not had any income because they were not supplied with water due to the persisting drought.” Then a little further down, the official stated: “We did this so as to give the go-ahead to farmers to either plant crops for the new year, since this one has been lost, or to give them the opportunity to plant different crops.”
My question is why? I do understand about pride and the logo Product of Cyprus, but if it is destroying other sectors, which affect the majority of the population, is it fair?
Just last week, my daughter told me that the city water was working by 12pm, I just spoke with her, 4.02pm and the city hasn’t released any water yet.
Patrick Barry
London SW5, UK
