This farm with a capacity of 1,000 pigs, affiliated with a cooperative, received the green light from the prefecture at the end of the year to settle in Giat (Puy-de-Dôme), the municipal council gave its approval.
"He is a young breeder who takes over his father's farm. There are already piggeries in the town and his project is part of this sector", explains Didier Sénégas-Rouvière, mayor of the town of 800 inhabitants.
Livestock farming is the main activity of this territory marked by rural exodus with modest-sized farms, far from the industrial farms developed in other French regions, at the heart of lively debates.
In Giat, agricultural activity shapes a bucolic landscape, where bocage, ponds and streams alternate.
Also, for the opponents, a pigsty of this capacity, with animals fattened inside the buildings, is a real threat to the environment and the quality of life.
Main black spot according to them: the spreading of slurry - pig droppings - which makes it possible to fertilize the plots of farmers.
"It's a territory with surface water so everything will end up directly in the water with consequences for biodiversity," says Arnaud Chapal, a retiree who is leading the protest.
This resident of Basville (Creuse), a handful of kilometers away, founded an association to file an appeal before the administrative court.
Same concern on the side of the Fishing Federation: "there is a risk of pollution of the Sioulet, the only river where there are still wild trout" estimates Michel Vigier, a local official.
Associations such as L214 or France Nature Environnement are also beginning to mobilize.
- "Omerta" -
In its decree, the prefecture specifies that the spreading plan presents an excess of phosphorus - the main responsible for the pollution of waterways - while granting a period of five years to the breeder to put itself "in conformity".
"We are not going to wait five years! La Creuse is not a trash can. It is now that we have to stop, because there are all the other projects behind" underlines Arnaud Chapal.
“Industrialists know that they can no longer go to Brittany so they come to underprivileged territories like ours,” he says.
False, answers Christine Roguet, project manager at Ifip (Pork Institute): breeders favor "areas where production is important, because there is already a network of tools, skills".
"Why prevent a young person who has a project in a low-density area?" She asks, assuring that "technological progress and the supervision of breeders" now limit environmental risks.
For her, the question above all arises of food autonomy: for the pig sector, the rate of self-supply in France is 100% but reaches 135% in Germany and 200% in Spain.
"Do people prefer to eat Spanish pig?"
she asks.
As for the spreading of slurry, "it's a natural fertilizer and it will always be that in less chemical fertilizers", according to her.
But Xavier Dubois, 39, and his partner Diane Chastang, 35, who grow organic vegetables near Basville, refuse to "choose between the plague and cholera".
They fear the worst since they discovered that the slurry would be dumped on plots located above their land.
Farmer Xavier Dubois and his wife Diane Chastang, opposed to the construction of an industrial pigsty near their farm in Giat, in Puy-de-Dôme, February 10, 2022 Thierry ZOCCOLAN AFP
"We are not activists but we wonder: what will be the consequences, how will this be controlled?" Asks Xavier Dubois, evoking an "omerta" around the file.
In fact, no breeder contacted by AFP wished to speak.
In Fernoël, a village close to the farm, "everyone is against it but people don't want to say it. Nobody moves because they are cousins or themselves farmers", testifies Marie-Claude Berger, a resident who also dreads "olfactory pollution".
"My neighbor can't sleep anymore, she's afraid of not being able to sell her house," she breathes.
The mayor of Giat sees the opponents as "a minority of people who do not live year-round in the region and above all defend their second home problems under the guise of ecology".
© 2022 AFP