French fruit growers and winemakers are warning that the majority of their harvest this year has been lost to this week's frost.
"No
region has been spared: beets, rape, barley, vines fruit trees ... All
the different kind of support must be activated urgently," the National
Federation of Unions for Farmers (FNSEA) stressed.
Anti-frost candles burn to protect trees from frost in an orchard in Westhoffen, eastern France, on April 6, 2021April 6, 2021. Frederick Florin/AFP
"Exceptional situations call for exceptional measures," it added.
All through the week, farmers across France had tried to save their harvest from the frost by lighting fires and candles.
A
winegrower burns a bale of straw in the vineyards to protect them from
frost as the sun rises at the heart of the Vouvray vineyard in Touraine,
France. April 7, 2021Guillaume Souvant/AFP
In the south-eastern départements
of Drome and Ardeche, temperatures dropped to as low as -8°C during the
nights this week. The mercury has thus fallen by 33°C over 10 days.
Local winemakers and fruit growers reported to the FNSEA that they had lost up about 90 per cent of their harvest.
Philippe
Pellaton, President of the Inter-Rhone Association of winegrowers, has
also warned that this year should see "the smallest harvest of the Côtes
du Rhône in the last 40 years."
He
estimates that about "80 per cent to 90 per cent" of the nearly 68,000
hectares making up this terroir have been lost to the frost.
"The
winegrowers are devastated, downcast," he went on, highlighting the
multiple strains they have had to contend with in recent years including
Brexit, US tariffs and the COVID-19 pandemic which all put pressure on
sales and exports.
Souvant/AFP 'Historic' bout of frost decimates French winemakers' harvest
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