The government will add one more cause to the protests of rural producers: the imminent approval of the New General Water Law, which will end the concession titles for water exploitation and change them for annual permits.
If the initiative is approved in its terms, the protests of rural producers who today demand better prices for their products will be radicalized because the text of the reform leaves distribution, rates, infrastructure and even the right to irrigate crops in the hands of the government.
Morena organized a four-day forum to, supposedly, listen to all the actors involved in the water issue; This forum began last Tuesday and concluded on Friday, without it being known whether or not the legislators will apply some of the recommendations presented by the experts.
It seems, however, that as has already happened in other forums for other topics, the legislators of the guinda party and their holdouts from the Green and the PT, only hear the exponents but do not listen and much less are they willing to move a comma to the text sent from the National Palace.
The new law, justified as necessary “to bring order” to the use of water – considered, by the way, a human right -, contemplates the replacement of rights, that is, concessions that are decades old, with permits that will be reviewed annually, which in the opinion of producers, is nothing more than an exercise of political control.
What will depend on whether or not a permit is renewed? That can be determined by the political situation, without a doubt.
The problem with exchanging concessions for permits is that the former granted per se legal certainty and patrimonial value of the land.
The concessions could be inherited or their ownership transferred, but the new law prohibits selling, assigning or inheriting the use of water.
The risk modules and associations will disappear and will be replaced by councils and committees designated by the National Water Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture, in certain cases.
This law also allows the government to suspend agricultural irrigation in the event of a drought, that is, prioritize human consumption, but without the obligation to compensate producing families.
The producers accuse that this law breaks the co-responsibility model and invades state powers.
The majority of rural producers are now focused on searching for better prices for their products and only the largest, who will be the most affected, have followed the process of approving this law.
If it happens on Tuesday, as planned, prepare to have a December full of blockades and mobilizations against a law that leaves control of water to the government that decides from CDMX, who will and who will not renew the permit.
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Truckers will go out today to block the main access roads in at least 20 states of the country, demanding greater security.
Corn and bean producers and any other group that has any claim to the government, whether local or federal, will be added to these contingents.
The warning was given in advance, so take your precautions.
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Yesterday he was murdered Juan Carlos Mezhua, former mayor of Zongolica, Veracruz.
One more murder with political overtones in that state, in which security remains blinder than a mole and where everything is resolved with promises of “zero impunity” and with a new “investigation folder.”
Why?
@adriantrejo