in the face of drought, market gardeners try new methods

In Marcoussis (Essonne), a market gardener harvests tomatoes that are already red on Tuesday August 2. However, they have never been watered. For the market gardener, it is essential to prepare the land well. Thus, he plants his tomatoes 15cm deep and buries moist compost, a natural fertilizer, in the ground. “The tomato, instead of gorging itself with water on the surface, it will try to feed itself in depth“, explains Marc Mascetti, market gardener. On his family farm, the method has been working for three generations.

“We may have to go back more to agriculture as before, where we worked a lot more, we worked more with our hands, we worked our land more“, he says. However, it is not possible to apply this technique everywhere. Another market gardener, located only 10km away, has clay soil that does not allow him to do without water. “The soil is very hard and even if it has been aerated, it tends to settle“, explains Erwan Humbert, market gardener, manager of the Ferme des Prés Neufs.