Colombia's agriculture and rural development ministry received a total of 270 irrigation and drainage project proposals for the 150bn-peso (US$73mn) budget set by the government for this year, the country's presidential website reported.

Related content

• Keywords

  Irrigation/Flood Control

Of the initiatives submitted, 76 consist of new irrigation projects to be carried out on individual pieces of land, while the remaining 194 are for the construction and rehabilitation of irrigation systems to benefit a certain area. Altogether, they require a total investment of 179bn pesos.

The announcement was made by agriculture minister Andrés Felipe Arias who explained that projects will be supported with 134mn pesos from the government. Each approved initiative will receive non-reimbursable funding for up to 80% of its total cost.

Individual irrigation projects must not exceed 7mn pesos/ha and 600mn pesos/project. Projects for the construction or rehabilitation of irrigation districts will receive a maximum of 3.5bn pesos/project with a limit of 10mn pesos/ha for construction and 5mn pesos/ha for rehabilitation.

Project awardees will finance construction materials for dams, tanks and wells; equipment for the extraction and transportation of water; and pipelines, tubes, pumps and filters for irrigation systems, among others.

The names of the funding awardees will be announced on May 23, the minister said.

If approved, the initiatives would provide irrigation to 79,000ha, benefitting over 20,000 families throughout the country.