Morbihan
Published on December 3, 2024
Using scarers – a sort of gas cannon used by farmers to scare away crows and other unwanted birds – farmers from the FDSEA and young farmers gathered this Tuesday late morning in front of the Redon sub-prefecture . Extremely rare, this demonstration was inter-departmental. Side by side, farmers from Ille-et-Vilaine, Morbihan, Côtes d'Armor and Loire-Atlantique wanted to demonstrate their hostility to the process of revising the SAGE (water development and management plan) which is in progress. For them it was also a matter of issuing a warning to the authorities, two days before a decisive meeting of this organization which defines the issues, objectives and actions concerning the water cycle at the scale of a watershed. Farmers believe that the SAGE project includes provisions intended to reduce water consumption which endanger their activity. “No impact study of the new rules set against agriculture has been carried out. This amounts to imposing prohibitive costs without having judged the impact on farmers,” indicate the representatives of the FNSEA. They believe that these rules are “unbalanced” and constitute a relentless attack against the agricultural profession. “This project is extremely restrictive for agriculture and its sustainability: strong additional constraints are planned on water withdrawals, including for watering animals, the creation of water reserves, the treatment of agricultural plots, the networks of drainages, etc. » These measures, according to them, would endanger 30% of farmers in the area concerned, a figure for which they have the theme of their action: “SAGE Vilaine is having its black Friday”.
They are all the more angry as they believe that the decisions being studied locally are more drastic than those taken by Paris and Brussels and denounce the under-representation of the agricultural world in this body. And we also sense a certain exasperation of these farmers at being considered polluters. “For years, the agricultural profession has been committed to preserving water quality,” they argue, with supporting figures. They give the example of the Herbinaye catchment near Ploërmel which had a nitrate level of 70 mg/l in 2003 while in 2023 it had fallen to 35 mg/l. “The profession is continuing its action on water quality by targeting the sectors most at risk,” they say.
This Tuesday morning, they chose Redon because in particular the sub-prefect Pascal Bagdian supervises the work of the SAGE. A delegation made up of Thierry Coué, deputy secretary general of the FNSEA, Mickael Trichet of the FDSEA 44 Pays de Loire, Dominique Balac representing farmers at SAGE, Jean-René Menier, representative of plant production in Brittany and G. Etrillard, of Young farmers from Ille et Vilaine, was received by the sub-prefect who then came to talk with the demonstrators. The latter demanded the withdrawal of two contentious points from the SAGE meeting scheduled for Thursday. They did not obtain it but on the other hand received the assurance that these two points will not be the subject of a vote…
But the farmers warned that they would remain attentive to the progress of this meeting, not hiding their determination to obtain a more in-depth reflection on the consequences of these measures for their profession.
Relive the highlights of this event in our video.
What is SAGE Vilaine?
SAGE Vilaine covers a very large territory in the departments of Ille et Vilaine, Loire-Atlantique, Côtes d'Armor and Morbihan, from the east of Ille et Vilaine to the Morbihan center in Saint-Jean Brévelay and Loudéac at Roche Bernard. It concerns in particular the Oust basin.
This is the first SAGE in France to meet and farmers fear that the decisions that will be taken on Thursday will spread and become widespread throughout the country.
