“Global warming is changing the situation”. In the premises that he shares in Arles with the French rice center, Bertrand Mazel, president of the French rice farmers’ union, does not hide his concern for the Camargue: “There are risks of marine submersion in part of the territory. , the public authorities must act quickly before the disaster. “
“We could imagine rebuilding the sea wall,” he says. Since Napoleon III, to whom we owe this development, we have not really thought about the evolution of the territory. We saved Mont Saint-Michel, we can try to save the Camargue! We need a medium and longer term vision of the activity of the delta. The “Camargue rice” PGI provides a living for nearly 170 farmers. “Rice growing sends a lot of fresh water to the delta, this contribution allows biodiversity,” says Bertrand Mazel.
The Camargue is surrounded by two arms of the Rhône, which divide at Arles before flowing into the Mediterranean. The Vaccarès pond has long played the role of a wet buffer zone, between the activity of the salt marshes to the south, and the rice further to the north. “Climate change means that the average flow of the Rhône will tend to decrease, also argues Arnaud Boisnard, engineer and responsible for the assessment and variety creation at the French rice center. In the two arms of the Rhône, the salt water from the sea will tend to rise. The rice is a pivot, which allows to bring a lot of fresh water in the middle. “
“A new variety cannot do everything”
The Camargue is not the only delta to be exposed to climatic issues and high soil salinity. The Po deltas in Italy and the Ebro in Spain, respectively the first and second largest rice-producing country in Europe, are experiencing similar problems. It is thus within the framework of a European project that the French rice center has developed a new variety of rice resistant to salt. “We brought a salt tolerance factor, which allows the plant to grow,” explains Arnaud Boisnard, who hopes that it can be marketed within two years.
“You should not believe that a variety will do everything, he qualifies. This is an additional asset, which must be integrated into a territorial policy and agricultural practices with flood irrigation, as the farmers who control the water they pump from the Rhône know how to do. At the same time, the center is working on other varieties likely to interest and develop the sector, which is in great demand for flavored rice, for example. Always with this concern to adapt to the constraints of the environment.
“This new variety interests us because it is the subject of the future, we anticipate, in relation to the sea rises to find seeds which are adaptable to salt”, affirms for his part Bertrand Mazel, who notes “that 25% of the zones rice fields in the world are deltas ”. And who in passing launches a call for responsibility: “In France, we do not make GMOs, we stick to a traditional method of natural hybridization, the consumer must know it and be ready to pay more for European rice. . “