New stage in the project to build 16 reserves for agricultural irrigation in the Sèvre Niortaise basin. The first one to see the light of day, that of Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, enters its operational phase, nine months after the start of the works. “We are really getting started. We will start this evening and Friday with the first tests and the start-up with the farmers”tells us Thierry Boudaud, president of the Coop de l’eau 79, which carries the project.
Five farms are connected to this first reserve, which represents a total of fifteen livestock and/or polyculture farmers on 475 hectares. “It will be used to water crops of alfalfa and fodder maize (for the production of PDO cow’s and goat’s milk), sunflower (edible oil) and durum wheat (which is used in the composition of pasta and semolina). The irrigation campaign should start in the next few days and extend until after the summer.”indicates the Water Coop in a press release.
The 200,000 m3 of water contained in the reserve would already be far in the ocean if they had not been taken this winter
While the project continues to arouse strong opposition, in particular from the collective Bassines non merci, the project leaders defend their model: “The 200,000 m3 of water contained in the reserve, which would already be far out in the ocean if they had not been taken this winter, will make it possible to secure the activity of these family farms. In the current context of global warming and international tensions on agricultural markets, water storage becomes an indispensable condition if we want to maintain local production and sustainable agriculture on our territory”, explains Thierry Boudaud in the press release.
The Water Coop reminds the “strong individual and collective commitments” taken by farmers under the protocol of agreement signed in December 2018. Access to water is conditional on a evolution of practices. “On this first tranche, the farms are mainly engaged in a transition process in soil conservation agriculture, which aims to reduce as much as possible, or even eliminate, tillage via the technique of direct seeding or no-tillage”explains Thierry Boudaud.
The Water Coop specifies that “the measures restricting water for irrigation use taken on May 3 by order of the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres _concern only samples from the natural environment_. They do not apply to substitute reservations..