Chevannes (France) (AFP)

In the grain store on Sébastien Méry's farm, one of the seven silos has remained empty this year. Rain has been lacking since the beginning of the year in this corner of Loiret, a region of major crops an hour south of Paris.

While temperatures are rising this weekend, the young grain farmer from Gâtinais keeps smiling, but is struggling to envisage the future. This year he reaped his "worst" harvest in ten years, since his installation, alone, on the 200 hectare farm where he succeeded his father: -35% wheat yield compared to the previous five years, -40 % in rapeseed, and -55% in malting barley. A disaster".

"Including rapeseed, every summer I harvest around 1,000 tonnes, this year, I am at 550 tonnes", sums up the young man.

Crops have suffered from the lack of water: A single thunderstorm since March, and only 290 mm of water since January, a first in more than 25 years.

After a mild and wet winter, crops also suffered from pest attacks, which were not killed by the cold. Problems of soil poverty too.

Sébastien is far from being the only one concerned. Most of the “intermediate areas” of cultivation in France are facing lower yields: ie around twenty departments stretching out on a diagonal connecting the Grand-Est to New Aquitaine, including part of Occitanie. The soils are poorer and shallower there than in Beauce or in the north of the country.

Sébastien is worried. Its harvest will not even be enough to pay for the investments necessary to plant new seedlings and work them. And this for the second time in five years.

In the region, "some are on the verge of shutting down, they will stop mining," he said. Arable land is at risk of being lost (uncultivated, editor's note). "Never seen before", according to the young man.

Many of Sébastien's plots are "drying", they do not store water. And the flint stones that dot his fields do not mix well with agricultural tools. The blades break, the claws twist. Machines have to be constantly repaired. Which drives up operating costs.

In the 1970s, his father drew water from the water table, followed by digging a rainwater retention basin in the 1990s, to irrigate. All subject to prefectural authorization and subject to meteorological conditions.

- Water restrictions -

But, while the heatwave has been accentuating since Friday, the young man seems hesitant to resort to what remains of water in his basin to irrigate his corn, the only crop likely to save his year economically: "when people see irrigation in a heatwave, they do not understand ".

However, he has the right to use stored water during the winter, when the rains are abundant. The administrative restrictions on the use of water affecting the Loiret and 71 other departments this weekend mainly relate to withdrawals by direct pumping in rivers or in nearby water tables.

“Here, in the Betz watershed, a tributary of the Seine, we are on heightened alert, at the 3rd stage, subject to bans on irrigation of 36 hours per week,” he explains.

A little further, the Loire Valley is classified in "crisis" (4th and last stage): any agricultural irrigation by direct pumping is totally prohibited.

"For those who grow corn, it will be a loss of yield, and for the breeders, it will be a loss of fodder for the animals" explains Sébastien. "For the market gardeners and arborists of the Loire Valley who supply the Rungis wholesale market, cutting off the irrigation is equivalent to a lack of vegetables on the market stalls".

© 2020 AFP