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French wine production for 2021 is expected to fall by 29% after the unusual cold spells at the start of the year that wreaked havoc on the vines, the Ministry of Agriculture announced on Tuesday.
Heavy summer rains also favored the growth of late blight which has taken a toll on grapes, with production for the world’s largest wine exporter now forecast to be “historically low,” the ministry’s Agreste statistical agency said.
At 33.3 million hectoliters, the harvest would be “lower than the levels of 1991 and 2017, years which were also affected by severe spring frosts,” Agreste said, adding that it could rival the record lows of 1977.
Almost all of France’s wine regions, from Bordeaux in the southwest to Champagne in the northeast, have been hit by freezing temperatures in early April, as the buds hatch early after a mild winter.
“Agricultural disaster”
Desperate growers started fires in vineyards in an attempt to raise nighttime temperatures and reduce losses, while others sprayed the vines with water, hoping to form “cocoons” of ice over them. the buds that would in fact protect them from freezing.
Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie said the frost attack for France was “probably the biggest agricultural disaster of the start of the 21st century”.
Producers of kiwis, apricots, apples and other fruits have also been hit hard, as have farmers of other crops such as beets and rapeseed.
World Weather Attribution, an international organization that analyzes the links between extreme weather events and global warming, said in a study in June that a warmer climate increased the likelihood of an extreme frost coinciding with a period of time by 60%. growth.
France is the second largest producer of wine in the world, after Italy.
(With AFP)
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