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France: 2 episodes of frost cause enormous damage in vineyards and orchards
France
Friday 16 April 2021
FJ
At the end of March, temperatures reached 25 to 28 ° C and favored the opening of the buds. A few days later, the frost hit. Some productions, such as apricots in the Rhône valley, are strongly impacted with losses of around 60 to 100% (Photo: twitter.com/FNSEA).
Last week's frost episode, deemed the biggest disaster to have hit the French agricultural sector in more than 30 years, has just been worsened these days by a new wave of low temperatures. Several hundred thousand hectares have been impacted, losses are enormous in vineyards and orchards .
During the end of March the temperatures announced spring and led to the awakening of the vegetation. But during week 14 a severe drop in temperatures caused frosts down to -8 ° C in many regions; 10 regions out of the 13 French regions are affected. Then during week 15, a new episode of freezing worsened the situation.
Among the affected regions are the regions of North and East, Touraine, Charentes, the Garonne valley, the Rhône valley, Languedoc-Roussillon and the Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur region. Several hundred thousand hectares have been impacted, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. If, it is still too early to quantify the damage precisely, wine production and fruit production are particularly affected.
The damage caused to the production of cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, pears and apples is being assessed. In some areas the losses are already estimated at 100% and in other areas and for some products the losses could be between 40 and 60%.
The French government has promised an "exceptional" response to help affected producers.
source: courier-picard.fr, francetvinfo.fr, fnsea.fr
