It is planned to build 64 water reservoirs, daily and ten-day regulation pools in Kyrgyzstan. The Minister of Agriculture Askarbek Dzhanybekov announced at a briefing.
According to him, the Ministry of Agriculture has worked out certain measures to adapt to climate change and optimize the use of irrigation water.
«The first steps have already been taken. We have reduced water losses by 10 percent, increased the volume of supplied moisture by 20 percent, this is the result of utilization of 1 billion soms allocated from the budget,» the official said.
According to him, water-saving technologies — drip irrigation, sprinkling irrigation — are also being actively introduced to reduce losses.
«More than 250 million soms have been allocated from the budget in 2022 so that farmers can purchase equipment for drip irrigation. Thanks to this, its area was doubled in a year. The equipment is given for five years at 6 percent,» Askarbek Dzhanybekov said.
He also noted that during the non-growing season, water from water sources, for example, in Chui region, flows into Chu river and then goes to Kazakhstan. «We plan to begin construction of water storage structures: reservoirs, daily and ten-day regulation pools. They will allow water to be collected and then supplied to farmers. We are preliminary planning the design of 64 objects. Work on some of them has already begun,» the minister noted.
According to him, work is underway to reduce water losses during transportation.
«About 25-30 percent is lost during transportation. If we take 5.7 billion cubic meters of water from the source, then we lose about 1.5 billion. Now we are carrying out mechanical cleaning and concreting of the canals. Last year, about 668 kilometers were cleared, this year there will be more. By the end of 2025, we must complete the mechanized cleaning of all canals that are on our balance sheet,» Askarbek Dzhanybekov added.
