Dairy breeder at the Cloître-Pleyben (29), Bruno remained embraces the meadows grilled by the sun and the lack of water. “Usually, in this season, we harvested 1,000 hay boots wrapped for our cows, in anticipation of winter, and I even manage to resell the hundred in surplus. This year, we only managed to constitute 675, and we’ve been hitting in the winter reserve for a month, “said, bitter, the farmer installed organic with his brother, at the edge of the Arrée mountains.
A deficit of 300 boots that changes the situation. “We have no choice but to go back to conventional, for lack of enough grass. We are on 130 hectares, one ha per cow, the rule in organic. But they have nothing to graze in pastures, the fodder stock will be insufficient until next spring. Our milk will therefore be downgraded. A heartbreak for the operating chief who watches the weather forecast every day. “It would take, at least 60 to 100 mm of rains so that the vegetation leaves and allows us to make a hundred boots in addition to the end of September.
The farmer, fatalistic, tenderly observes his heifers, muffle on the ground, in search of fresh food that is rare. Introduce more corn into their winter rations? It is still far from being won. Bruno remained approaches the plants that are ever more stunted at the edge of the field, tears an episy, discover it: “See the grains are small. Cultures are thirsty. This can still evolve, but it must rarest, quickly. Otherwise, not only will the silage be early but the yields will be bad. »»
Uncertain yields
About fifty kilometers further north, in Taulé (29), Christian Bernard is also waiting for the rain. “The weather conditions are ideal for tourists, much less for the cultures of the open field,” laments the regional president of the Artichokes Prince of Brittany section, traveling a field of Violet Cardinal. “The artichoke does not like excess heat or lack of water,” describes the market gardener. So far, he particularly liked the Breton climate. “But, this year, he goes up prematurely and cracks, before having developed enough vegetation. Result: or he makes a head, but of small caliber. We are then forced to unase, in other words to leave only the mother head and eliminate the other two. Either he doesn’t head at all. »Case n ° 1: The artichoke, smaller than hoped, arrives on the market in the middle of August, a period unfavorable to its promotion as well as to its consumption. The volumes collected will be disappointing. Case 2: Blocked plants will give heads in the spring, at risk, added to new plots, to cause overproduction.
“In my opinion, the situation is worse than in 2022,” said Christian Bernard. The majority of the 210 artichoke producers of the vegetable band, from Leon to Trégor-Goëlo, do not have an irrigation system. The multiplication of drought episodes threatens this ancestral culture which has already retreated in half on the surface, since 2018 (2,185 ha planted last year in Brittany).
Particularly affected Morbihan
Yields lower than the average for the first beans, end of the complicated campaign for peas and spinach intended for industry, leeks and cabbage requiring more watering: the effects of the lack of precipitation on irrigated crops are also marked, according to the follow -up by the Brittany Chamber of Agriculture.
If the water stress is proven throughout the region, with a “climate demand” (rain – possible evapo -transpiration) of more than twice higher than normal, it is South Brittany – singularly Morbihan – which suffers the most. In this department, five territories (Basins watersheds of the AFF, Ellé, Survival, Scorff and Yvel-Ninian) have exceeded the stage of the drought alert in force, everywhere else in the region, to be applied to a reinforced level of alert, accompanied by more strict restrictions in the use of water.
Rural coordination 56 was worried about it, in mid-July, requesting the public authorities an exceptional authorization of the fallow mower and recognition of the state of agricultural calamity. The union organization had then launched an appeal for solidarity between farmers. “We have received a lot of calls from operators agree to make available, colleagues in difficulty, the fodder that remained in excess,” said Ronan Le Clec’h, departmental president. Which anticipates, for corn, a drop in yields and the nutritional quality of the grains, “especially in eastern Morbihan”. But what he dreads the most is a possible rebound effect on the herds.
“Due to the heat, many breeders have not worried about seeing their cows slightly feverish, missing a asymptomatic FCO (Catarrhale Fish) which will impact their production of milk and cause abortions …”
