In recent years, farmers have suffered in the Hérault. Heat wave, frost, floods… Nature has spared them nothing. From this avalanche of disasters was born a new system, which could well change the daily life of local producers: Agripredict. This tool, created by the Chamber of Agriculture and the company Predict Services, which specializes in risk management, aims to alert farmers to exceptional weather phenomena that are on the way. Early enough for them to protect their land.
“Do you know the device, put in place by insurance companies, which sends you an SMS alert before a large-scale climatic event? “Don’t go out”, “Take cover”, etc. Agripredict is the same thing,” explains Guilhem Vigroux, farmer, general secretary of the Hérault Chamber of Agriculture and administrator at Groupama Méditerranée. “Except that instead of warning you an hour before,” continues this professional, you are warned several days in advance.
In June 2019, “this heat stroke, it was a detonator”
This idea was born after the hot weather in June 2019. In the department, apple and apricot trees had been ravaged, poultry farms decimated. And, in the vines, the grapes had roasted, as if burned with a blowtorch.
“Predict Services told us ‘Several days in advance, we knew it was going to be hot! We knew the intensity, municipality by municipality,’ explains Guilhem Vigroux. We said to ourselves that if we had been able to warn the farmers, saying “Be careful, an exceptional climatic event is going to happen”, they would have had fewer losses. This heat stroke, it was a detonator. It had never been so hot. Up to 48 degrees! »
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A first SMS five days before, a confirmation two days before
This strategy, “which had shown its interest in flood risks, for example, with communities or companies, we thought that it could be relevant for the agricultural world”, notes Alix Roumagnac, president of Predict Services .
Thus, farmers are warned of a risk of flooding, extreme heat or frost by SMS, “five days before”, with advice to protect the harvest: avoid putting sulfur on the vines or cutting leaves. , in the event of a major heat stroke to come, for example. Then “we confirm two days before”, notes Alix Roumagnac. This system, supported by the Hérault Chamber of Agriculture, Groupama and several local authorities, is free for farmers.
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