A ball as an opening this Friday evening, a great march on Saturday noon, as a culmination, and then assemblies and debates on Sunday morning… La Rochenard, a town in Deux-Sèvres, is hosting the Printemps maraîchin this weekend.
Festive atmosphere, but also determined.
These three days aim above all to find the great mobilizations of the fall against the project "mega basins", these water reservoirs that 220 farms in the Sèvre Niortaise want to build.
A headlong rush into intensive agriculture in a region where water runs out every summer, criticize opponents.
They want to make this quarrel of basins the mother of battles, while similar projects are in the cards elsewhere in France.
From Lyon, Lille, Besançon, Paris, Toulouse… In total, Julien Le Guet, from the “Bassines non merci” collective, has fifteen coaches from all over France, to which must be added processions of tractors from neighboring departments.
Everyone must converge at La Rochénard, in Deux-Sèvres.
The municipality (500 souls) welcomes from this Friday evening the Printemps maraîchin, three days of a large gathering at the call of about fifty organizations (associations, unions, parties...) against the project "mega basins which has been agitating the Sèvre Niortaise basin for several years now.
The territory, straddling three departments (Deux-Sèvres, Charente, Vienne) is at the heart of the Poitevin marshes, the second largest wetland in France and where, however, water is now scarce every summer.
To cope, 220 farms united in the Coop de l'eau 79 want to build sixteen agricultural water reserves, each covering several hectares.
"Mega-basins" qualify the opponents, "water reservoirs" say the project leaders.
A Saturday morning walk under high tension?
The battle is not only lexical, it is also on the ground, with major mobilizations like those of this fall which brought together up to 3,000 people in a most tense context.
What will this market spring bring?
Julien Le Guet already has two certainties.
“The first is that we will beat the record for mobilizations at anti-basin demonstrations, the second is that we will be under close police surveillance (see box)”, he states.
Especially during the big march on Saturday noon, announced as the highlight of the weekend.
It will be a question of joining Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, the neighboring town where a first basin has already emerged from the ground at the end of December.
Its filling began in stride by pumping in the water table.
It is now at 85%.
And the Coop de l'eau wants to launch the construction of three new basins at the end of the summer.
The project, worth a total of 60 million euros and 70% subsidized by public funds, was supposed to initially store 6.9 million m².
It should only be 5.8 million after the administrative court of Poitiers, last May, asked to revise downwards the sizing of nine basins.
"We will comply," says Thierry Boudaud.
The farmer, president of the Coop de l'eau 79, hopes to see the sixteen basins completed by 2026. "This project is vital for the territory and at the service of more sustainable water management", argues he.
The idea is to fill these structures in the winter, when the rains are most abundant, to use them in the summer and thus less strain the groundwater during this critical period.
A way to secure crops in a region where we can no longer deny the reality of climate change, slips Thierry Boudaud.
“These cultures are not those of operators launched into agribusiness as our opponents caricature, he adds.
The average size of the 220 farms (450 farmers) is 170 ha and half are in a mixed crop/livestock system,
with cereal crops which are used above all to feed the farm's livestock.
This is also the challenge of these basins: to maintain breeding in the region.
»
"From the ESS upside down"
In the camp opposite, the picture described is quite different.
“It is neither more nor less than a grabbing of water, very common, by a handful of farmers”, we point out to Bassines no thank you.
“Of the 220 farms, only a hundred will be connected to the basins, the others financing the work to have the right to continue to irrigate in the summer by drawing from the water table, explains Julien Le Guet.
It's the social and solidarity economy (ESS) in reverse, the smallest, those who have the least important water rights, paying for the biggest.
“And for Bassines non merci, these 100 connected farms are among the largest in the territory, “focused on intensive cereal crops, continues Julien Le Guet.
Corn, wheat, tobacco, mostly dedicated to export.
Some are turning to the CBD market.
And they want us to believe that these basins will help feed the territory.
Is this what water should be used for in priority?
»
The question will be at the heart of this spring market gardening.
It does not arise only in the Sèvre niortaise.
Dominique Chevillon, vice-president of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), has 93 projects for replacement reserves throughout the Poitevin marshes.
“A disaster, he is alarmed.
These reserves will draw considerable volumes of water from the aquifers of the region, assuming that the winter rains will make them painless.
However, it is no longer uncommon to already see, in the region, water tables coming out of winter at very low levels.
This is also the case this year.
"Behind, the LPO points to the risk that these reserves pose to the water cycle and its quality in the Poitevin marsh and, by extension, to biodiversity itself, "already undermined for 50 years despite our efforts “recalls Dominique Chevillon.
Behind these basins, "the question of the agricultural model we want tomorrow"
It is indeed the whole “pirouette” denounced by Nicolas Girod, spokesperson for the Confédération paysanne, agricultural union.
“Rather than adapting agricultural practices to a resource that is becoming scarce, these mega-basins make it possible to continue this headlong rush in the industrialization of our agriculture”, he considers.
In this regard, the agricultural water Varenne did not reassure Nicolas Girod.
The consultation, launched by the government to move towards better water management in the sector, delivered its conclusions on 1 February.
"It ended as it began, with the executive's conviction that the massive storage of water in winter, via reservoir projects, is the ultimate response to climate change", continues the spokesperson for the Peasant Confederation.
Already in the summer of 2020, Julien Denormandie,
Minister of Agriculture, asked "to lighten the procedures a little to build these reservoirs".
“Massive storage projects are in the pipeline almost everywhere in France, resumes Nicolas Girod.
In Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, in the Grand-Est region, in Nièvre…”
Enough to turn all eyes towards the Sèvre niortaise where the basin projects are the most advanced to date.
"It's not just a local conflict between citizens and farmers, it raises the question of the agricultural model we want in France", considers Nicolas Girod.
“The battle is crucial because we know that if these first projects go to the end, the others will follow”, abounds Benoît, of the Uprisings of the earth, a civil disobedience movement which joined the anti-basin mobilization in September.
Going as far as making La Rochenard a new Zone to defend?
"These three days of festive, political and cultural mobilizations are in the spirit of what may have existed in Notre-Dame-des-Landes", continues Benoît.
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Unconvincing commitments?
A turn that Thierry Boudaud does not like.
It is accompanied by a radicalization of actions, he regrets.
There have been unacceptable downgrades to surrogate reservoirs in the region in recent months, and news is feared this weekend, in the same vein as the attack on a freight train carrying wheat at the weekend. last end in Morbihan.
»
The farmer also notes that this politicization accentuates the caricatures a little more.
“There is no headlong rush in an intensive agricultural model in the Sèvre Niortaise,” he insists.
Since the 2000s, farmers in the territory have been on a path of lower water withdrawals that the basins will allow to continue.
The president of the Coop de l'eau refers to the December 2018 protocol signed with the public authorities, environmental associations and the Coop de l'eau.
The document records the construction of basins in exchange for which the beneficiaries undertake to change their practices.
“Around sixty farmers [those affected by the first batch of basins] have already signed their commitment contracts.
They are mainly focused on the restoration of ecological corridors (planting of hedges, grass strips, etc.) but there is also a reflection launched on a reduction in the use of phytosanitary products.
»
“Reflection”… The term means everything for Bassines Non Merci.
“Pure Greenwashing, laments Julien Le Guet.
Of the four environmental associations that were initially part of it, two left it, disappointed by the little effort made.
".
This is also the case of Delphine Batho, president of Génération Ecologie, who left the table of the project monitoring committee in October 2020.
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Drought: In France, "water is a resource still managed on a small week"
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Deux-Sèvres: Thousands of opponents of "mega-basins" expected from Friday
A military camera discovered near the home of an anti-basin activist?
The discovery does not make Julien Le Guet smile.
On March 18, the spokesperson for the collective “Bassines, non merci” discovered a camera and military surveillance equipment near his father's home.
The military device was installed out of sight, between a residential wall and a field, under a camouflage net, says
Le Courrier de l'Ouest.
Three days later, the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres will recognize that the spy gear was installed by the national police.
“In strict compliance with the legal framework,” the statement said.
Well with a view to preparing the security of the event.
Poitou-Charentes
Niort
Swamp
Weather
Resources
Water
Farmers
Planet
Agriculture
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