A week after the bad weather, winegrowers and market gardeners see the damage in Béziers

A week after the severe bad weather who saw the Orb overflowing, market gardeners and winegrowers observe the damage in Beziers. The river approached the critical threshold of 12.50 meters in height on Sunday evening. Several inhabitants of Plaine Saint-Pierre found themselves with water in their homes. And many vineyards in the low points of the city have also been submerged.

Like that of Francis Torregrossa, 76 years old. He owns the Saint-Pierre estate in Béziers, near Sauvian. More than two hectares out of fifty ended up under 2 meters of water. “The Orb took everything it found and brought it to the vines. That is to say branches, pieces of caravans. It laid down all the stakes, it tore out all the moorings” explains Francis Torregrossa. Annoyed, he says that“There are fifteen days of work. In a while the buds will come out. The problem is that we have to wait for the expertise to go into a natural disaster. But the buds are not going to wait. They have to water. As soon as they get warm, it will start. We will have to cut them and lose the harvest.” He estimates that the loss on his next wine sales will be around “200 or 300 hectoliters.” Sold at 90 euros per hectolitre, it would be around 27,000 euros wasted.

Lost vegetable plantations

In the fields of Hort del Gal the water also caused damage. Michel Vicq, 56, is a market gardener at the entrance to Béziers. Established for 13 years, it has 6 hectares of fruit and vegetables and 3.5 hectares of vines. His vegetable crops ended up under 1.50 meters of water. “End of winter vegetables, i.e. spinach, fennel, chard, are lost. You can wash them but it’s very difficult to recover. Everything that was planted for spring is lost. is damaged. We may lose 50% of the harvest. For fruit trees, we cannot treat them for three weeks because the soil is waterlogged and the weight of the sprayer cannot pass through the plots. so diseases will set in.”

Which will lead to difficulties in paying his two employees for one or two months. Especially since it is not his first weather-related problems. “Every four years we experience major floods.” And he cannot count on his savings linked to his wine production from last year because he suffered the April 2021 frost. Time to replant everything and harvest, Michel Vicq’s fruits and vegetables will arrive with a months late.

The water from the flood cleared the floors

Despite all the problems that this entails, some see the positive in these bad weather. Like Pierre Calmel who is at the head of the Sérignan cooperative cellar. From January to March, he brings a large quantity of water himself to the vines to wash the soil. Here it is nature that has done it for him: “This flood was beneficial on the Plaine de Sérignan and Villeneuve for our salinity problem. Afterwards, we can’t be happy about it because some of our winegrowers had material damage. But overall it’s positive for us.” Pierre Calmel intends to organize days of solidarity to help the winegrowers affected by the floods to clean up the damage.