Their crops rotted and drowned. The gardeners of Bourges accuse the town hall of having neglected the maintenance of the marshes. They are demanding compensation.
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“Everything was destroyed. The beans, good for picking, were drowned.“For Michel Besse, president of the association of Solidarity Gardeners of Bourges, 2024 will be a year to forget. In one year, the marshes bordering the city suffered eleven floods, the consequences of heavy episodes of rain. Result: rotten crops, drowned under several centimeters or even meters of water.
The last flood was in mid-October. In the marshes themselves, there were between 1 and 2.5 meters of water, which stagnated for several days. Today, the Association of Community Gardeners estimates the damage to be nearly 30,000 euros, and is demanding compensation from the city of Bourges.
Indeed, gardeners criticize the municipality for poor water management and insufficient maintenance of ditches. “Because of the waste, also because it is not cleaned, the water rises more quickly“, deplores Michel Besse. What drowns”systematically“the plots.”We haven't seen this since 1976, when I started gardening.“Some, discouraged, would have already abandoned their plot.
At the town hall, Catherine Menguy, deputy responsible for green spaces, recalls that these marshes are classified as a flood zone. And that they are, precisely, only fulfilling their role: welcoming the excess water due to precipitation. “I really understand the pain that market gardeners who lose their production can have.“, concedes the chosen one, “but I remind you that floods kill people all over the world, and so the idea is to effectively flood areas in places where it does not create mortality.“.
The municipality of Bourges says, despite everything, it is ready to discuss and listen to the proposals of solidarity gardeners to reduce the risk of flooding in the future.
One thing is certain: it will not be enough to wait and hope that these climate disasters disappear on their own. The year 2024 was the first in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees increase since pre-industrial times, and the current trajectory has scientists fearing an increase in extreme weather events.
