Drought: UFC-Que Choisir denounces the poor management of water by the executive and French agriculture

In France, the blue gold management map highlights 21 departments. The only ones, out of 95, not subject to water restrictions. A critical situation which did not fail to alert the UFC-Que Choisir, which sounds the tocsin this Thursday. The consumer association "denounces the weakness of the measures proposed by the Government in the face of the scarcity of the resource" and demands the implementation of emergency measures to avoid monopolization of water by extensive agriculture. There should be a “true implementation of the user-pays principle for intensive agriculture” and “a reorientation of CAP aid towards the most water-efficient production methods”.

The observation of the UFC-Que Choisir is clear: "Summer has barely begun [...] in 29 departments, there are areas in a crisis situation where direct debits are totally prohibited and reserved for priority uses only, essentially the production of drinking water". In the spring, the executive had however launched a major “water plan” of 53 measures intended to improve the management of blue gold, a resource threatened by global warming and drought. The stated objective is ambitious: to reduce consumption in France by 10% by 2030. Window dressing, criticizes UFC-Que Choisir: effect in the absence of binding or budgetary measures commensurate with the climate challenge”.

If farmers are urged to save the resource, it is because, according to government figures, agriculture is the largest consumer of water in France, with 58% of the total consumed. This is followed by households, restaurants and tourist places (26%) which use drinking water, then the cooling of power plants (12%) and finally other industries (4%).

To the point that the association evokes “water in an “open bar” for intensive agriculture”. Especially since "its puncture in the resource represents up to more than 90% of consumption for the departments of the Atlantic coast and the South-West". In question, the production of corn, whose "water needs are concentrated in July and August".

The UFC-Que Choisir relies on the report of the Court of Auditors entitled "Quantitative management of water in times of climate change", published on July 17th. The Elders of rue Cambon note that “according to data from the BNPE (National Bank for Quantitative Water Withdrawals), water withdrawals for irrigation have more than doubled in a decade”. A finding that is all the more serious as “agricultural irrigation has developed in regions where this practice was not usual and aggravates already tense situations.” The document even specifies that “in the Adour-Garonne basin, half of the 20,000 irrigators do not make a declaration” on the quantity of water withdrawn.

Faced with these figures, the consumer association is disillusioned: "in the absence of a real financial incentive to accomplish the ecological transition, there is no chance that intensive agriculture will give up its practices that are as polluting as they are expensive in water. ". The 30 million euros put on the table by the government to support farmers in their efforts “represent barely one percent of the annual aid received by farmers within the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy”, complains the UFC-Que Choisir. The Court of Auditors also went in this direction. It considered that "these one-off aids for lower water consumption remain less financially attractive than the CAP aids which are not subject to any criteria concerning a reduction in water withdrawals, or even encourage certain crops requiring a high water supply without condition of place”. Crop explicitly named by UFC-Que Choisir: corn.

“Corn is the plant that uses the least water to produce the most biomass!” retorts Yannick Fialip when questioned on this subject on Thursday at the microphone of RMC. In addition to recalling the fees paid by farmers to water agencies, the president of the FNSEA's economic commission recalls that in France "only 6.8% of the surfaces are irrigated, compared to 15% in Spain". For the FNSEA, the situation is clear: “Other crops, such as market gardening and orchards, need to be watered. If we reduce our water consumption, production will be reduced by the same amount and this reduction in quantity will be passed on to the price paid by the consumer”. An economic reality that could aggravate the current situation. On Wednesday, the Familles Rurales association published its annual report, noting that “the prices of fruits and vegetables soared by 16% between June 2022 and June 2023”. To the point that to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day, a family of four “had to spend between 134 and 241 euros” each month last year.