Farmers who depend on the Mirateca borehole in Candelária say a technical problem has dramatically reduced the speed of water supply for nearly three months, turning what was once a routine agricultural task into hours of waiting and disrupting the daily management of livestock and farms.
On an island farm, water is measured not only in liters but in time. It determines when animals can be tended, when other work can begin and how efficiently the many obligations of an agricultural day can be organized. At the Mirateca borehole, in the parish of Candelária on Pico, farmers say that equation has become increasingly difficult. For almost three months, a reported technical malfunction has slowed the filling of water tanks so substantially that producers are spending hours completing a task that previously required a fraction of the time.
Farmer Carlos Pereira describes the difference plainly. “Before, I could fill a 5,000-liter tank in 20 minutes and an 8,000-liter tank in 40. Now it takes more than one hour and more than two hours to fill them,” he told Ilha Maior. The problem becomes still more difficult when several farmers arrive for water and must wait for those ahead of them. “It is impossible to continue with a problem that delays the day’s work—mine and that of other farmers who have to wait their turn.”
According to the farmers interviewed, the situation has already been reported, but they are still waiting for a solution. The reduced flow means that each collection requires a longer stay at Mirateca, limiting farmers’ ability to respond efficiently to the water requirements of their livestock. For producers who must make several trips during a single day, what appears technically to be a problem of filling speed becomes a significant disruption to the organization of an entire farm.
The consequences could have been considerably worse during a dry summer. Pereira says rainfall over recent months reduced the amount of water farmers otherwise would have needed to transport to their animals. Even with that fortunate circumstance, the burden remains substantial. “At the moment I have 400 animals, and getting water two or three times a day is an ordeal because I spend a large part of the day filling water,” he explained.
His words illustrate a reality sometimes obscured when agricultural infrastructure is discussed only in terms of equipment and maintenance. A borehole, reservoir, agricultural road or water-distribution point may appear modest beside larger public works, but its failure can immediately affect the rhythm and economics of farming. Hours spent waiting for a tank to fill are hours unavailable for feeding animals, maintaining fields, repairing equipment or completing the many other tasks upon which an agricultural operation depends.
The farmers are therefore asking the responsible authorities to assess the cause of the reduced flow and restore the borehole to its previous capacity. Their concern is not simply inconvenience. Reliable access to water is fundamental infrastructure for livestock production, particularly in an island environment where agricultural operations must already contend with transportation costs, limited resources and the uncertainties of weather.
For now, the rain has offered Mirateca’s farmers some protection from the full consequences of the problem. But rain is not an infrastructure policy, nor can an agricultural community depend upon the generosity of the clouds to compensate indefinitely for malfunctioning equipment.
At Mirateca, thousands of liters still emerge from the ground. The problem is how long farmers must wait for them. And in agriculture, where daylight, animals and seasons obey their own clocks, three months of waiting for a repair can become another cost carried quietly by those whose working day cannot simply be postponed.
Based on a story in the Pico Island newspaper Ilha Maior-Manuel Tomás, director. Photo form Ilha Maior.