The Great Debate: Restoring Karla Lake and the Future of Agriculture in Thessaly

Karla Lake was drained in 1962 to make land for agriculture and combat malaria, but was restored again in 2018 to combat drought. After last year’s floods, the area of ​​the lake has tripled.

How to deal with the consequences of the disaster has become a debate about the future of agriculture in the Thessaly region as a whole.

Almond fields and pastures remained under water

Local farmers had their farms and livestock destroyed by last year’s floods.

“Here was a big field,” Yannis Ciantos, a representative of a fishing family, one of the few residents of the village of Kanalia who still owns a boat, told AFP news agency.

“We used to drive here with tractors to collect almonds. Now it’s all under water.”

His friend Apostols Polimeru, a 32-year-old sheep farmer, also rides with him. “There used to be pastures for four to five thousand cattle here,” he recalls.

Last September, the storm “Daniels” caused major floods in Thessaly, Greece’s most fertile plain, within hours.

17 people died in them. Floods destroyed roads and bridges, drowned tens of thousands of farm animals.

Polimeru says that the sheep of his herd have had to live in a narrow place for half a year. “They develop deformities in their lungs and liver. If we had known what would happen, it would have been better to let them drown,” says the desperate farmer.

A complete disaster

The lakeside village of Sotirio, once surrounded by fields of corn and cotton, now sits on the edge of a swamp.

The fields are covered with dark green water. Even where the floods have receded, only mud and dead stems remain.

Greek farmer Angels Jamalis says that his family lost 50 hectares of cotton, 30 hectares of wheat and 15 hectares of pistachio trees.

“It was a total disaster. Even after the water recedes, we don’t know if the fields will be productive,” the 25-year-old told AFP.

“We based our whole future on this area, on these crops,” Jamalis said, adding that the new trees will take at least seven years to bear fruit.

Calls to abandon cotton cultivation

Greek authorities have not given a timetable for the recovery of the flood-hit region, and there are conflicting views on what to do next.

Thessalian authorities are in favor of digging a large canal that would allow the water to drain into the Aegean Sea.

But a Dutch water management company advising the Greek government is advocating a different approach, which aims not only to stop floods but also to prevent future droughts.

The company “HVA International” proposes to build dozens of small dams that would retain rainwater in the mountains.

Thessaly also needs to rethink its dependence on cotton, Miltiadis Gkuzuris, CEO of the Amsterdam-based company, told AFP.

The region should abandon cotton production while there is still time to conserve remaining groundwater reserves, he said.

“If we continue to pump water from the 30,000 boreholes that are in the region, the fresh water supply will be depleted to the point where seawater can enter. You will not be able to irrigate anything,” warns Gkuzuris.

Farmers are afraid of losing their source of income

Greece is the largest producer of cotton in the European Union, producing 80% of all EU cotton, the remaining 20% ​​is produced by Spain.

Although cotton accounts for less than 0.2 percent of the value of European agricultural output, it has “major regional importance”, the EU says.

Gkuzuris argues that growing cotton “in itself is not profitable, and everyone knows that.”

But the governor of the Thessaly region, Dimitris Kurets, is strongly opposed to the elimination of the cotton industry, as it remains a profitable industry for many local residents. He has warned that plans to abolish cotton will be seen by locals as a “war application”.

Kuret reports that the cotton cultivation of 15,000 families in the region provides an income of 210 million euros. EU subsidies amount to another 65 million euros.

Cotton grower Jamalis believes that it would not be easy to replace cotton with other crops.

“There’s a lot of money invested. Most farmers would be against a ban. And it’s not like fruit trees and legumes need less water.”

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