Anyone who has been to Chile knows that one of the most common ingredients in the diet is avocado. Cream of avocado with toast in the morning, avocado with salmon, avocado sandwich and turkey breast — the recipes are endless. The fruit is also among the main Chilean exports.
The main production region, however, is experiencing a complex situation. For decades, practically all the water that flows in the province of Petorca has belonged, by lifelong concession, to companies that grow avocados for domestic sale or export. There is no local water for the population, who are regularly visited by water trucks to fill the houses’ reservoirs. For their own consumption, the inhabitants must buy bottles of mineral water, which come from other cities, increasing the cost of living in the region.
This system of granting hereditary concessions for the use of water in agribusiness was established by the Water Code, enacted in the same year as the Constitution that currently governs Chile, in 1981, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). It is a system that does not exist in other countries.
Two weeks away from the mandatory referendum that will define whether Chileans will approve or reject the new Constitution, the water issue emerges as one of the most divisive. The Charter, which has been drafted since July 2021, after the election of 154 lawmakers, needs popular approval on September 4 to be implemented.
The latest research by the Cadem Institute shows that the difference between the options is getting smaller and smaller. The rejection of the text currently has 46% of the intentions, against 38% of the approval – which, in a more extended scenario, shows some recovery, with a rise of 4 points in relation to the previous measurement, while the rejection remained stable.
President Gabriel Boric says that, if the veto on the new Charter wins, the government will determine that controversial topics or even the entire text be discussed again, from scratch. After all, in the 2021 referendum, it was decided to abandon the Constitution of the Pinochet era. The president’s decision will need to be endorsed by Congress.
In relation to water, the current legislation is managed by the Ministry of Works and Structures, which grants permissions for the lifetime use of river waters. “It is an elitist and outdated vision, which has kept the resource in the domain of large agribusiness companies, leaving in the background the consumption of the population and the irrigation of small farms and ranches”, he tells Sheet María Christina Fragkou, geographer at the University of Chile.
The new Charter, if approved, will transfer water management to the Ministry of the Environment; that a regulatory agency be created; and that lifetime concessions be reviewed —according to analysts, in addition to creating a division between who can and cannot have access to water, they have opened space for illegal trade.
Resource management will then no longer be centralized. As the new Constitution also proposes for other administration issues, there will be a regionalization of administration. Thus, drier areas will receive different attention from those that are better irrigated.
“The previous legislation also didn’t take into account that there would be less water due to the climate crisis, the increase in population, the lack of snow in the Andes that reduces the volume of rivers. These things will be better managed in a system where the water as part of the environment, with the concern of preservation”, says Fragkou.
The idea of reviewing concessions already distributed by the State, however, causes controversy among those who hold them.
According to a 2020 survey, of the more than 29 thousand owners of water rights, 1% concentrate 79% of this resource. This translates into more than 1 million Chileans without access to drinking water and dependence on water trucks, an alternative for hundreds of municipalities in the interior of the country. Critics point out that the water that arrives through these vehicles is not always clean, with reports of cases of gastritis and other diseases in regional health posts.
In addition, Chile is experiencing an unprecedented drought caused by climate change. According to government data, more than 76% of the territory currently lives in “water stress” — that is, it needs extra help to minimally satisfy the consumption of drinking water and for plantations. In a recent speech, Boric mentioned a possible need to promote rationing in big cities soon.
Right-wing politicians are against water system reform. “This is the biggest expropriation of private goods we’ve seen in many years,” said constituent Rodrigo Álvarez, of the UDI (União Democrata Independente).
For Ariel Muñoz, from the Center for the Study of Climate, the fall in the amount of rain and snow is a trend. “Especially in the mountainous region of Chile, and an accelerating trend that will lead, further on, to the desertification of these areas. If we continue extracting water, the reserves will end.”
He sees the creation of a Water Agency that proposes regional solutions linked to the ecological context of each region as positive.
