De la gestión privada a la gestión colectiva del riego: El caso de Riegos de Levante

Studies and research on organizational alternatives used in managing common access renewable resources have seen a great revival thanks to the approaches pioneered by Elinor Ostrom, the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics. For this author, reality shows that there are other models (or ‘theoretical frameworks’ as Ostrom likes to define them) in which resource appropriators are able to self-organize and efficiently manage a natural resource without having to fall into the dichotomy between private and public sector companies or administrations. This paper presents a case that runs contrary to the trends exhibited by today’s dominant models: the transition from a private company, the Real Compañía de Riegos de Levante S.A, to a self-organizing irrigator’s corporation, the Comunidad de Riegos de Levante. As a counterpoint, its evolution is compared and contrasted with the survival of a private sector company in the same market: the Nuevos Riegos el Progreso S.A. How should we consider an organization that is the holder of several water rights concessions and the irrigation water supplier for about 20,000 farmers in an area of 39,000 hectares in southern Alicante province? Is this a private or a public company? Is it possible to define it as another type of organization?