France is experiencing a “historic” drought this year and faced with this, “adaptation is not an option, it is an obligation anyway”, assures the Minister of Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu.
In an interview with Provence published this Friday, he assures us that the government wants to “send messages on the need and the need to accelerate transitions” in particular on the use of water.
Ahead of a day of meetings in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence with farmers affected by drought, in the company of the Minister of Agriculture, Christophe Béchu recalled that "drinking water is 20% of consumption levies.
Agricultural uses are double that”.
The Minister for the Ecological Transition, who signed a decree at the end of July authorizing the control and monitoring of levels even in winter, insists on management upstream of crises: "we should not wait for low water to land question ".
The thorny question of watering crops?
Also interviewed by La Provence, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, abounds in wondering “how to recover water in periods when rainfall is excessive to mobilize it in times of shortage without impacting other needs”.
Asked about agricultural watering in this period of crisis, Marc Fesneau estimated that "if there is no water, there is no harvest and if no harvest it is the question of sovereignty. food that arises.
Sometimes just watering the cattle is a problem and you have to take care of that too”.
For the most water-intensive crops, such as corn, Marc Fesneau assured that "we did not wait for the 2022 episode. More water-efficient systems are installed", adding that in the absence of maize to feed livestock, "we are forced to import soybeans which are a product of deforestation", pleading for "an overview".
Planet
Drought: Elisabeth Borne activates the interministerial crisis unit in the face of a "historic situation"
Paris
Drought: In Ile-de-France, concern about the consequences of lack of water
Planet
Agriculture
Water
Drought
Ecology
Global warming
Breeding
Farmers
ministry of ecology