2023-12-22 12:28:20
8,000 hectares of vines offered for grubbing up. This is what Bordeaux winegrowers have requested with more than 1,200 applications submitted as part of an aid plan for the first French AOC vineyard, announced Friday the Ministry of Agriculture. This system, announced in June and approved in November by the European Commission, offers a bonus of 6,000 euros per hectare grubbed. The goal ? Fight against disease but also reduce excess production.
Fight against flavescence ore and overproduction
Uprooting vines allows, by dedensifying the vineyard, to fight against flavescence goldene, which threatens abandoned vines. It is a “serious disease of the vine due to a phytoplasma (bacteria) transmitted by an insect”, explains the Ministry of Agriculture. It “causes significant yield losses and can also affect the sustainability of vineyards”.
For Stéphane Gabard, president of the Syndicat des AOC Bordeaux and Bordeaux Supérieur, the thousands of applications for grubbing up show “a certain enthusiasm from our operators who need to reduce their surface areas and avoid the health problems linked to the multiplication of vines fallow. »
The program co-financed by the State and the inter-industry, which can reach 9,500 ha over two years, should also make it possible to reduce excess production, given the sharp drop in wine consumption in France. The grubbing work will begin before May 31 in a vineyard which is suffering from the collapse of prices, the closure of export markets and an overproduction estimated at one million hectoliters.
The counter will reopen in autumn 2024 for the remaining 1,500 ha. In July, 1,085 pre-applications had been submitted with a view to uprooting 9,251 ha.
Transform land into forest or fallow
The State has planned to finance these operations to the tune of 30 million euros – up to 38 million if necessary – for its renaturation component which consists of transforming the plots into forests or fallows for a minimum of 20 years. At the same time, the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region will finance the agricultural reconversion of land after grubbing up to the tune of 10 million euros. The Bordeaux Interprofessional Wine Council (CIVB) is providing 19 million euros for crop diversification.
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More than 700 candidates – representing, before processing the files, nearly 4,000 ha – favored the renaturation project, synonymous with a cessation of activity. They will benefit from a maximum overall amount of aid of 24 million euros, “compatible with the envelope planned by the State for the part of the system which is its responsibility”.
The option of diversification, financed by the CIVB, attracted some 500 winegrowers to uproot more than 4,000 ha as well: these requests, however, exceed the envelope of 19 million euros available. They will therefore be subject to a “stabilizing coefficient limiting the eligible areas” which will be determined at the end of the examination of the files.
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