If there is a lot of talk regarding water and drought this year, everywhere in the media, it has been a recurring question for a long time in the Aude department… For several years, the Rhône water agency Méditerranée financially supports the efforts made by the Chamber of Agriculture, and the agricultural profession as a whole, to save water and improve its quality.
« All this has been put in place to respond to different problemsexplains Daniel Casteignau, team leader Aude climate change at the Chamber of Agriculture. First of all, there is the question of water quality, since a third of the surface water from the aquifers was contaminated by phytosanitary products in particular, very persistent old molecules such as atrazine, but also glyphosate or sulphur. .. Work has so far focused on catchment areas and priority water bodies with, as a tool, conversions to organic, high environmental value, the ecophyto plan. »
Deficit of 37 million m3 per year
The new framework contract between the Rhône Méditerranée water agency and the Aude chamber of agriculture will in particular support the implementation of agro-environmental measures on farms which make it possible to limit the impact of agriculture on water quality.
The total financing, which concerns approximately 7.5 full-time equivalents, amounts to 1.58 million euros over three years and will be matched up to 1.1 million euros by the water agency. . The Aude chamber of agriculture is, along with that of the Gard, the only one in the Occitanie region to have set up such a partnership with the water agency.
Daniel Casteignau also points out that the Chamber of Agriculture has always had good relations with the agency, ” which is not the case everywhere else, and so we are able to have open discussions on all subjects “. Even the angry ones.
Beyond quality, the question of the resource, at the center of all the debates this summer, is also essential in Aude, a department with a deficit of 37 million m3 per year.
« Since the implementation of the water resource management plan in 2017, we have collectively succeeded in saving 23 million m3 per year by intervening on the most important problems, the Robine canal and its leaks for example. , explain Daniel Casteigneau. We have 14 left to pick up, but these are the hardest. »
480 small reservoirs identified
« The agricultural profession has several objectives, he adds. The first is to find all the systems that exist to store water and consolidate the resource. The second is to optimize the use of water and mobilize storage that is not used, such as the 480 identified small reservoirs which contain 10 million m3. And to question the management of existing reserves and review the target low water flow of the Aude increased from 2 m3 to 4.4 m3. »
An impossible objective for professionals who “consume” almost 19 million additional m3 that cannot be mobilized…
« The agency is not completely hostile to the question of new storage, as long as it is not intended to develop agriculture but a vocation to serve several uses, from low-water support to substitutions as we do for the watering of herds by disconnecting them from drinking water », souligne Daniel Casteigneau.
The stakes are high: today, only 15% of crops are irrigated in the department.