The bacterium Xylella fastidiosa was detected for the first time in France on olive trees, announced Friday the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. Redoubtable for olive trees, it is particularly prevalent in Menton and Antibes, in the Alpes-Maritimes, where it was found on two ornamental trees.
Despite the small number of cases discovered so far, the health alert is taken seriously by the French authorities since the bacterium has already wreaked havoc in southern Italy.
Sandrine Marfisi, president of the olive industry in Corsica, where the disease has already spread to other trees, says that "we must not underestimate" the "seriousness of the situation": "We, what we hope that, on strains a little less virulent, we have time to react, the time that scientists bring us answers rather quickly.This is a race against time. "
A consequence of global warming?
Contagion is therefore difficult to treat, especially since the bacteria is transmitted by insects. It is also complicated to spot. For Jean-Yves Rasplus, of the National Institute of Agricultural Research, if the bacteria has been detected, it does not mean "that all trees will die". "It has been shown that the introduction is probably fifty to one hundred years old and, as a result of climate change, it tends to express slightly more important symptoms than before," explains Jean-Yves Rasplus.
With the exceptionally hot summer that France has experienced, the need to think of solutions to control the bacteria is a little more assertive, failing to make the disease disappear.