RUNNING DRY

Walking along a cracked earth path in Chile's Petorca province, Catalina Espinoza points to a barren hill littered with dried shrubs and cacti - and to a nearby dry waterway.

The city of Petorca, a three-hour drive north of the capital Santiago, sits in the heart of Chile's booming avocado industry, surrounded by rows of thousands of avocado trees.

Its abundant produce helps make Chile the world's third largest exporter of the popular fruit. But the bounty has come at a price, residents say - the drying of local water supplies.

About 70% of freshwater used each year goes to agriculture, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Finding ways to reduce farming's share of the world's water, while still growing enough food to feed a rising population, will be crucial to preventing worsening hunger, particularly in the face of climate change, food experts say.

But global trade in food - which is effectively trade in the water used to produce it - may also need reconsideration in an era of increasing water shortages, they say.

In Petorca, in Chile's Valparaiso region, local people and small avocado farmers say the arrival of big commercial avocado companies more than a decade ago has led to increasingly severe water shortfalls.

That is fueling tensions locally - and even led to death threats.

Under Chile's 1981 Water Code, water in the country can be owned and traded as a commodity.

The law allows individuals and private companies - including avocado producers - to request water rights that are then allocated by the government.

Those granted rights are allowed to extract and use a certain volume of water.

Lucas Palacios, Chile's vice minister for public works, stressed that water for human consumption is free in Chile, and guaranteed under the law.

"Water isn't privatized" but instead is regulated, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview in his office in Santiago.

He said he recognised that what was happening in Petorca was "rather an inhumane situation" and said the government was working to improve the region's drinking water system so residents did not need to rely on trucked-in water.

"But this will take time. It will take years," he said.

    And "it's important to note that the situation in Petorca is quite extreme" compared to others parts of the country, he said.

As water resources in Petorca have come under increasing pressure, accusations of water theft by big growers have emerged.

According to Chilean environmental group MODATIMA, big producers are using greater amounts of water than their allocations allow. 

Rodrigo Mundaca, an agronomist at MODATIMA, the Movement for the Protection of Water, Land Rights and the Environment said some farms are quietly expanding their plantations ever closer to river beds, illegally draining river water.

Others are drilling unauthorized groundwater wells, reaching deeper and deeper for scarce water, as wells owned by residents - who cannot afford to dig as deep - run dry, he said.

Some big avocado companies also are building illegal water pipes to ensure they have enough water for irrigation, according to MODATIMA.

A 2011 study by Chile's water authority, Direccion General de Aguas, using satellite imagery, showed at least 65 illegal underground pipes and systems delivering water from rivers to avocado orchards run by private firms in Petorca.

"In Chile, water is not safeguarded as a human right," Mundaca said.

Once he could swim in the local rivers, but for 12 years water has barely flowed in them, he said.

Meanwhile, "the hills have been turned into orchards. The hills don't have water shortages," he pointed out.

The campaign group has denounced water thefts and shortages in Petorca, including before a local court and in the international media.

In 2017, that led to death threats, Mundaca said.

"I've been threatened by phone twice," he said, noting that he no longer goes out alone, to try to protect himself.

Human rights groups Amnesty International and Front Line Defenders have documented the threats.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation contacted Cabilfrut, the largest exporter of Hass avocados in Petorca, and Chile's Hass Avocado Board, but both declined to be interviewed about the situation in Petorca.

Chilean avocado grower Baika S.A. did not respond to email requests for comment.

Bosch, the large-scale local avocado grower, said the government should build big reservoirs in Petorca, to catch and store more water to address local water shortages, particularly during the dry summer months.

Similar private reservoirs on avocado farms are what keeps water flowing to the trees in dry times, he said.

"I have reservoirs of around 50,000 cubic meters (13 million U.S. gallons)," said Bosch. "In winter, I fill them up. I retain the extra water, and I use it now in summer when I need it."

Farmers in the area have been asking the government to build additional reservoirs for the past 50 years for the community's benefit, he added.