What should farmers do in the face climate change, and the increasing number of droughts it brings about? Should they store surplus rainwater in winter to irrigate their fields in summer? I visited a well-known French agricultural blogger, “Gilles VK agriculteur du Loiret”, to take a closer look at the problem. And I went to see him in both seasons, as both winter and summer are key in determining water levels in agriculture, and thus, in determining agricultural production. From his YouTube videos, I knew that Gilles had a private reservoir on his farm. With a capacity of 45 000 m3, it is rather modest, stocking just enough water for him to sustain 25 ha of maize and 5 ha of onions. In France, a fierce public debate is raging at the moment about much bigger structures than Gilles’s retention basin. These so-called “méga-bassines” are situated primarily in the west of the country, and they run on groundwater, which makes their environmental impact all the greater. “Méga-bassines” are the very excesses of agricultural water storage in the face of unabated climate change. There is good reason to ask: Do we need more reservoirs? Are there maybe other measures that we could put in place to make the most of water storage? Gilles pulls back the curtains on his operations for a first-hand glimpse at the solution that he’s found. In doing so, he sheds light on a debate, which, ultimately, concerns us all.
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“Tous Terriens !” is an independent series, born from a sense of civic and professional duty to deliver quality information on the environmental and societal issues of our day. In keeping with this, I’ve self-financed this video.
Author and producer:
Pierre Girard
Co-author and camera,
translation and subtitles (FR/EN/DE):
Geoffrey Schöning
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