With temperatures well above normal for the season and almost non-existent rainfall this winter, the last few months have been more than mild in Corsica in terms of weather. But this weather could have consequences, especially on agriculture.
“At this period, we don’t have to have dry land like that”. By stirring up the soil of his two hectares where he recently planted zucchini, Jean-Jacques Fieschi, a farmer living in the municipality of Vescovato, draws an initial assessment of this winter, and without being catastrophic, it is not very encouraging, no more, especially for the future.
It must be said that usually, in mid-March, it is mostly mud and rain that market gardeners have to deal with. This year, the agricultural world is worried, we will have to adapt.
“We wonder when it will rain, and we are afraid that it will be in April, at the time of the harvest season and the start of the tourist season. It would be penalizing”.
Météo France and the Hydraulic office remain cautious
If thanks to the rains of the last months of 2018 the soil was able to recharge with water, it will still not be enough to get through the summer of 2019.
For Patrick Rebillout, the director of the meteorological center of Ajaccio, the situation is not yet critical… But the rain would still be welcome.
“We know that a priori, it will fall, but in a warmer atmosphere. So that is to say probably with evaporation, and therefore a worsening of the drought index.”
For its part, the hydraulic office of Corsica is also beginning to prepare for the summer season. With the drought, field watering began about 20 days earlier than in other years.
“The fact that the dams are full and that we are in this situation of monthly flow of the rivers which fall, that puts us in a situation of alert vis-à-vis the farmers, but also the communities” worries Xavier Luciani, the president of the office.
The hydraulic office has already announced that it will set up a monthly water monitoring committee, starting in April.
It will also be time to raise awareness, the objective is to make farmers, tourism professionals, communities and individuals responsible for a more reasonable use of water, as the climate seems ready to impose on us.
