If stable harvests were obtained from irrigable areas of 300,000 hectares, Moldova's food security would be ensured, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting a study made by the National Farmers Federation Agroinform. At the first stage, there must be intensively and super-intensively irrigated orchards on an area of 40,000 hectares, vineyards on an area of 30,000 hectares, vegetable and legume fields of 70,000 hectares, fields of forage crops of 100,000 hectares, fields of technical crops of 20,000 hectares and fields of crops of the first group of 40,000 hectares. The irrigation capacity of the water sources existing in Moldova is only 700,000 hectares. There is a shortage of high-quality water for irrigation. Specialists say in some cases the farmers use water that contains more than 1 gram of salt per liter, while the allowed norm is 0.85 grams. The higher content of salt destroys the soil. Scientists of the Institute of Pedology and Agrochemistry said the saline soils in 2004 occupied about 106,000 hectares, constituting 5% of the total examined farmland. Not only the artificial ponds, but also the small rivers are affected by the salinization process. There are also ecological problems driving from irrigation, especially when the land is irrigated incorrectly. Scientists said many of the problems can be solved if there are used modern irrigation technologies, like dripping or 'at root'.