French Farmers Feel Impacts of Worsening Drought

Many regions in France face a pro­longed drought that is impact­ing water avail­abil­ity, soil mois­ture, and farm­ing activ­i­ties.

Forecasts show that most French depart­ments will have to cope with a long dry sum­mer which will exac­er­bate the effects of the drought in sev­eral areas.

A map pub­lished by the Ministry for Ecological Transition shows that 76 of France’s 96 depart­ments are in a state of alert. Furthermore, 26 (of the 76) are in a state of high alert.

Drought risk lev­els are deter­mined by exam­in­ing water lev­els in reser­voirs, lakes and rivers while also con­sid­er­ing ground­wa­ter and soil mois­ture lev­els.

According to the min­istry, cur­rent restric­tions on water use are being applied in south­ern depart­ments, where the vast major­ity of the coun­try’s olive oil is pro­duced.

According to the French news­pa­per, LeMonde, the grim fore­casts for the cur­rent drought are fueled by sig­nif­i­cantly lower than aver­age rain­fall last autumn and win­ter, which usu­ally replen­ishes water lev­els and leads to more avail­abil­ity later in the sea­son.

Simon Mittelberger, a cli­ma­tol­o­gist at Méteo-France, told LeMonde that the sit­u­a­tion would likely be worse in 22 depart­ments by the end of sum­mer.

Water scarcity in May, paired with lower soil mois­ture and record-break­ing heat, is hav­ing a par­tic­u­larly pro­found impact on agri­cul­ture.

“The month of May is not only very hot but also very dry,” Olivier Proust, a fore­cast­ing engi­neer at Météo-France, told Agence France Press. ​“From the Belgian bor­der to the Atlantic, we have a 20 to 30 per­cent rain­fall deficit.”

This sum­mer, the most sig­nif­i­cant impacts are expected to be felt by wheat and bar­ley pro­duc­ers.

“The plant is in the run-up phase at the moment, a cru­cial period that deter­mines the num­ber of grains and their qual­ity,” said Joël Limouzin, a farmer and vice-pres­i­dent of the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions.

He added that many farm­ers in sev­eral areas, includ­ing ones that do not usu­ally need to, have already used irri­ga­tion to sus­tain the crops used for ani­mal food.

“We must be frank, with the hydro­log­i­cal fore­casts that Meteo France pro­duced for the end of May and early of June, there will be a whole part of France which will, in any case, be per­ma­nently affected,” Jean-Charles Deswarte, an agron­o­mist at the crop insti­tute Arvalis, told Reuters.

According to Deswarte, almost one-third of crop poten­tial has already been lost in regions with drop­ping sur­face or mid-soil water lev­els. As a result, crop poten­tial could fall by 50 per­cent in some areas.

“Whether it be for corn, sun­flower or sorghum when there is no water, there is no plant,” he said.

Given the sit­u­a­tion and the enor­mous amount of water needed for the sec­tor, the agri-food indus­try in sev­eral areas is cam­paign­ing to reuse treated waste­water, reg­u­la­tions which are con­sid­ered more strict in France than else­where in Europe.

The water scarcity sit­u­a­tion is espe­cially wor­ry­ing for south­ern France, and many areas where olive trees are grown are cur­rently affected by the drought.

In the south­east, rain­fall lev­els are down 53 per­cent, from Bouches-du-Rhône to Alpes-de-Haute-Provence.

The pre­fec­ture of Bouches-du-Rhône has acti­vated a state of cri­sis for the Huveaune river basins, which means 19 munic­i­pal­i­ties and some areas of Marseille face water restric­tions. Several por­tions of the river have report­edly dried up.

To limit the effects of the drought, the min­istry said the mea­sures aim to pre­serve water ​“and ensure access to drink­ing water and for pub­lic health while remain­ing atten­tive to the chal­lenges of agri­cul­tural and energy activ­i­ties.”

“In the face of drought, sav­ing water must be everyone’s busi­ness,” the min­istry con­cluded.

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