Three consecutive days of spring frost and cold records since 1947 have inflicted heavy losses in the orchards of the Southwest, damage which will be partly compensated, the State having announced on Tuesday the release of emergency aid.
From Tarn-et-Garonne, “one of the most affected territories”, Prime Minister Jean Castex promised “an emergency aid fund for an amount of 20 million euros” and the activation of the “fund National Agricultural Disasters”.
An urgent lack of cash
“We will also reactivate the exceptional coverage of their social security contributions”, assured the head of government after visiting an 80% damaged farm in Cazes-Mondenard (Tarn-et-Garonne).
“These are good measures, but what is missing is cash, immediately”, reacted the president of the Tarn-et-Garonne chamber of agriculture Alain Iches, estimating that the aid risked only arriving. ‘at the end of the year. “Some are just receiving the aid corresponding to the damage in the spring of 2021,” he says.
Damage worse than last year
The Garonne valley, the Dordogne, certain regions of the East, the north of the Aquitaine region were particularly affected, said Jean Castex, who was accompanied by the Minister of Agriculture Julien Denormandie.
The damage in stone fruit plantations (plum, peach) in Tarn-et-Garonne is “certainly worse than last year”. “We will be around 80% of losses linked to frost”, in particular for the prune of Agen, estimates the president of the chamber of agriculture, stressing that these figures are still to be refined.
The president of the Lot-et-Garonne Chamber of Agriculture, Serge Bousquet-Cassagne, is even more pessimistic: last year, “we lost 70% of the harvest, this year we will be at 80-90%” for plums and prunes.