in the face of drought, market gardeners adapt

Around Toulouse (Haute-Garonne), the week was marked by scorching temperatures. To protect his farm from the sun, Réginald Sanz, market gardener, had to pull out all the stops. He covered the walls with a white layer. “We water a lot more than before, we water as if we were in the middle of August”he explains.

In the North, the land of Alexandre Grave, also a market gardener, was abnormally dry on Sunday May 22. The growth of vegetables is blocked by the lack of water. Faced with an unusual situation in this region, he invested 40,000 euros in irrigation systems. A cost that will be difficult to absorb. Usually, for a cauliflower, “the average production cost is between 65 and 70 cents. Here we are going to completely explode it, we are going to be close to 1 euro”, he confides. Other market gardeners draw their water from groundwater. In total, around thirty departments must already limit the use of water.