Champagne: winegrowers use dwarf pigs to plow the soil

Six little kunekune pigs were placed in a Champagne vineyard in the Marne for an innovative eco-grazing mission.

By ThePoint.fr

RThinking about viticulture without pesticides can be done without a return to mechanical weeding. In any case, this is the promise made by two agricultural engineers and wine consultants, Olivier Zebic and Jérôme Courgey, who propose instead to use dwarf pigs. Both have launched an experiment in a Champagne vineyard with six kunekune breed pigs, as reported by our colleagues from Parisian. A New Zealand species renowned for the featherweight of its cattle.

The experiment is taking place in Cramant, a town in the Marne, on a Champagne plot. The six pigs with black, red and cream coats have the rather pleasant task of eating the herbs that grow at the foot of the vines. But also – and this is what gives them an advantage over sheep – to search the ground with their snout in search of roots and rhizomes of thistle or couch grass. A mission that the animals seem to fulfill without difficulty, and above all without plowing the soil and without damaging the vines, as could happen to the plow of the winegrower at whose experiment is taking place.