“We will very quickly activate the devices that we know, such as the reduction of social charges, the tax exemption on the tax on unbuilt land (…) also look at the devices that can be taken in the context of agricultural disasters “, declared the new Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Marc Fesneau, after his meeting with winegrowers in a farm affected Thursday in Saint-Quentin-de-Caplong, in the east of Bordeaux.
“There is a request that has been made, we are working hard on it, to ensure that the loans guaranteed by the State (PGE) can be extended over time because we are going to have losses in our farms. revenue”, he said, without giving any figures.
In the short term, “we need to have an inventory very quickly to activate the devices (…) We have a very violent event in very many departments but in localized areas. We will do so in case per case”, he continued, ensuring “the mobilization of the State”.
He also returned to the new harvest insurance system, which will apply from January 1, 2023. “It is the doubling of the budget from 300 to 600 million euros, which will allow more than farmers to make sure”.
On the prevention side, “we must work on systems that make it possible to lessen the effects of stormy phenomena (in the face of) climate change which produces more regular and more powerful events”, he estimated.
– “Triple penalty” –
On this farm quickly visited by the Minister, the tender branches were broken, the leaves and the first bunches chopped and for some blackened.
“The hail lasted five minutes, three of which were dry hail, without water, which shredded everything. It’s very hard psychologically,” laments owner Nadège Impériale, two-thirds of the 120-hectare estate, which she co-manages with his sister Laurence, are affected, with “between 50% and 100% losses”.
“It’s a disaster. Here, we are not in Saint-Émilion, we do not snap our fingers to sell our wine”, underlines another winegrower, Christophe Porcher, who vinifies 35 hectares organically, “including ten entirely ravages”.
Then visiting another farm in the Gers at Castelnau d’Auzan-Labarrère, Marc Fesneau pointed out the “double or even triple penalty”, with calamities which cause “a loss of harvest, an average harvest the following year then a loss of market because we are not able to supply”.
For the president of the Bordeaux Wine Interprofessional Council Bernard Farges, the announcement of the spreading of the PGEs was “urgent”. “What came to save companies cannot be the source of their downfall today. It would lead them to bankruptcy if they had to repay now,” he warned.
The intense storm which crossed France was a “real disaster” for agriculture, the hail having affected vineyards, cereal crops as well as buildings, the president of the FNSEA (majority union) Christiane Lambert.
Significant damage was noted across France after the passage of this intense storm, with more than 40 departments affected, ranging from Brittany to Gers and Landes via Indre-et-Loire or Allier.
Lightning also struck the animals: in Cantal, 15 Prim’Holstein-type cows, out of a herd of 70 animals, were found dead on Sunday morning on a farm in Saint-Georges, during milking, as reported The mountain.
“We heard a big clap of thunder in the night, only one, then it started to rain. The cows visibly fell suddenly, they were under the tree next to the barn, where they had the ‘used to gather together when it’s hot,’ told AFP Marie-Jeanne Dufayet, associated with her sister and brother in the farm.
