Currently, approximately 10–14% of irrigated lands in Azerbaijan are equipped with modern irrigation systems. This accounts for about 130,000 hectares of land.
elchi reports that Minister of Agriculture Majnun Mammadov stated this during a panel discussion at the conference titled “Modern Agricultural Cooperation as a Foundation for Sustainable Development and a Guarantor of Food Security” held in Baku.
“We have an ambitious goal to increase this figure by more than two times by 2030. That is, it is planned to cover 300,000 hectares of land with modern irrigation systems by 2030. We hope that a new agricultural program will also be adopted for this purpose,” the minister added.
The minister also noted that there is no measurement of water used in the agricultural sector:
“Currently, 70% of the water resources we use are accounted for by agriculture. The remaining 30% is used in the domestic and industrial sectors. Interestingly, there are meters everywhere for that 30%, but there is almost no measurement for the 70% used in agriculture. For this reason, measuring water in agriculture will be one of the main priorities in the coming years. The goal is to understand how much water is being used and to direct it to farmers more efficiently.”