Frost is disastrous for crops this late in the season.

(drawing).

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FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP

The agricultural world held its breath on Monday before a new cold spell, but is already anticipating a mechanical increase in fruit prices and an exceptional fall in wine production in 2021, after frosts that destroyed a number of cultures. 

It is already "probably the greatest agronomic disaster of the beginning of the 21st century," Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie said on Monday evening on the Public Hearing platform (LCP-Public Senate-Le Figaro).

Hundreds of thousands of hectares impacted

“Several hundreds of thousands of hectares - I mean hundreds of thousands of hectares - were impacted,” added the Minister, while stressing that it was too early to quantify, in euros, the damage.

“In terms of money it will be very significant,” he simply said.

Julien Denormandie had convened earlier in the day, by videoconference, a first "crisis unit" on these spring frosts which affected 10 of the 13 French regions, in order to coordinate the government response.

The meeting brought together representatives of wine, fruit, vegetable and cereal producers, but also insurers, banks, chambers of agriculture, MSA agricultural social security, as well as representatives of the various ministries (Matignon, Bercy , Job).

Prime Minister Jean Castex had promised "exceptional envelopes" during a trip to Ardèche this weekend, at the bedside of fruit producers.

Towards an exceptional fund?

Among the measures envisaged: an easier recourse to short-time work, reductions in employer contributions but also, "given the extent of the damage", the creation of an "exceptional fund which comes to compensate for the loss of income", detailed Julien Denormandie .

In particular, it will be accessible to wine growers.

The latter have the possibility of insuring and therefore cannot claim compensation from the agricultural calamities fund.

However, less than a third of them are insured.

"The Minister has set himself the goal of the first funding to arrive in mid-June / early July for arborists and berry producers," FNSEA President Christiane Lambert reported at the end of the meeting.

Producers do not take their eyes off the weather forecast: the thermometer threatens to drop below zero until Thursday morning, notes Luc Servant, vice-president of the Chambers of Agriculture.

"With humidity, we can have hoar frost and therefore the formation of ice on plants and therefore we know that it can cause damage at lower temperatures," he explains.

At this time, the toll is already heavy for the winegrowers, according to Luc Servant: apart from the Charentais vineyards of the Cognac region and the Alsace vines, “all the other vineyards have been very hard hit”.

Some fruits rarer this summer

However, he refuses to make a prognosis on the extent of the losses, because part of the harvest can still be saved.

“There are vineyards where we talk about an 80% loss, others, it can be of the order of 50%, it can perhaps start again.

There are buds that are frozen, but not all of them came out, ”he believes.

"On the other hand, on the fruit trees where the fruits are frozen, it is certain that there will be no other flowers now, it is grated", describes, fatalist, Luc Servant.

"When we talk about the southwestern part of 80% losses, these are figures that will surely end up until the end," he thinks, counting on the same terrible ratio for the Rhone valley and on the entire Center / Val-de-Loire part.

Regarding major crops, sugar beet has suffered: "More than 10% of French beets have been destroyed by frost," reported Monday the CGB, union of beet growers.

Only one certainty, according to the Minister of Agriculture: "The consumer will have much less access this year to apricots, cherries, certain fruits" given the low harvest that is coming, "and the scarcity (...) of our products will be such that the prices will probably be affected ”.

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