Profile: the new face of farming?

Laurent Dirat irrigates his fields with water from the Arrats, one of the 17 rivers that rise in the foothills of the Pyrenees, France, and form the NESTE hydrographic system along with numerous artificial lakes and a canal.

The records of the local catchment manager, the CACG, show that natural flows have gone down by 25% over the past half century, particularly in summer. The area has been designated as being in water stress.

As in all river basins, riparian owners who wish to irrigate their land must apply to the OUGC for a river-water or groundwater abstraction licence and must install a meter on each pump¹. Because there is a cap set for the total volume of abstractions, new applicants must await the departure of someone already on the list of licensees.

What crops do you grow?

Laurent Dirat: I’ve loved exotic fruit and vegetables since I was a boy. Nowadays, I grow Asian herbs, several mustard varieties, Vietnamese cucumbers, African aubergines and kiwano – but I still find room for strawberries. All these take up about 40 hectares, and I use the other 200 hectares for wheat and sunflowers in rotation. Only the fruit and vegetables are irrigated. The irrigation protects the harvest because this dry and hot soil is an ideal breeding ground for a fungus that attacks plants when they are stressed, Macrophomina phaeolina. It has a mortality rate of up to 80%.

I have given up using glyphosate and I do the weeding with a hoe.

How do you manage the water supply on your farm?

Laurent Dirat: For my vegetables, I use a drip irrigation system during the hottest part of the day from early June to mid-July. I have given up using glyphosate and I do the weeding with a hoe. I also protect the soil with a green cover crop. This system allows me to save water. We’ve been seeing the effects of climate change in our local area for 20 years now. It first affected me personally during the drought in 2003. I have created a small private lake of 25,000 m³. It’s my Plan B – a sort of insurance.

Do water meters help improve water management? 

Laurent Dirat: I have to confess that I wasn’t pleased to see them arrive. With 2 meters I could only irrigate 2 areas on my farm. It was impossible under those conditions to avoid disease. So we used an ASAI, an authorised syndicated irrigation society, to create a shared water management system involving 44 landowners of whom 17 use irrigation. We manage the system like a shared-ownership syndicate.

Being a cooperative helps us to reduce our running costs. We work together to get the best out of the metering system and track down any leaks. In the end, I realised that having the meters has been useful in keeping us informed on how much water we can extract each day. And it’s also easier for the CACG to plan ahead and manage the upstream supply, especially as we have to wait three days for the water to reach us from the Pyrenees.

How do you fit in with wider water-management in the area?

Laurent Dirat: In the Adour-Garonne river basin we used to be the only ones without a CLE (local water commission). To compound the problem, this is one of the areas with the highest irrigation levels. Because I take an interest in the subject, I now represent the Tarn-et-Garonne irrigators on the NESTE Commission and on the CLE that has just been created. At the Commission, we had to take the extraordinary step of reducing the low-water target flow (DOE)² to 80% of its usual level this summer, just to get by. We are going to have to create substitution reservoirs to help us keep to the DOE as far as we can and to control levels of possible pollution.  Joining the two commissions as members also allows us farmers to challenge simplistic assumptions. For example, the ecologists and riparian communities accuse us of abstracting all the water from the rivers. But in fact, only 24% of the NESTE system is used for agriculture. On the other hand, the farmers felt that the DOE was set too high, but the Office of Biodiversity (OFB) has explained to us that setting it lower would have a significant long-term impact on biodiversity. And I’m prepared to listen to that.

What do you think is the greatest obstacle to change?

Innovation sometimes involves short-term losses to achieve future wins.

Laurent Dirat: I used to grow wheat with high added value. I gave that up. Not only did you rarely have a really good harvest, you also had to use a lot more phytosanitary products. I have now gone back to the traditional way of growing wheat. I look at my costs and I’m happy with what I have. Some maize growers take a different view of things. They concentrate on maximising their harvests. I may be swimming against the current here, but on these relatively dry hillsides it just isn’t appropriate for over 50% of the crop to be maize. On the other hand, I do understand that it is hard to change to a new system. You have to be prepared to scrutinise your own farming practices. If you want to innovate, you certainly have to be prepared to fail. And there isn’t really any way to insure yourself against that risk. But it is also true that innovation sometimes involves short-term losses to achieve future wins.

What do you think is an effective way to persuade farmers?

Laurent Dirat: If farmers are encouraged through the market, by using certification or labelling systems, I think they will all change what they do. Although it claims to be greener than before, the CAP is far less rigorous than my own comprehensive GAP certification³ which has 490 monitoring points. Change isn’t impossible – I’m proof of that! On the other hand, it isn’t right that, in this entire certification chain, the responsibility is entirely borne by farmers.

I think that irrigation can also be a lever to change what we grow. For example, in this area, we could grow more legumes including soya, and rebuild a rotational system. I believe in local solutions that are state of the art, flexible and reversible. In Holland, there are grants to encourage farmers to be innovative. It’s a shame that it doesn’t happen in France as well…

What are your plans?

Laurent Dirat: I have come to realise how important soil is. We are depleting its potential with our maize – wheat rotations. This year, before the strawberries go in, we are going to plant beans on 6 hectares to get the nitrogen and organic matter back into the soil, making it easier to till in June. On the other parcels, I am experimenting with different sorts of organic materials. I’d like to get some help from researchers with this. I also want to track down a water monitoring system that suits our river. I have seen check-valve systems in Germany and Italy that let you abstract whatever is left of your allowance downstream while still keeping to the DOE.  We could use it for our own back-up storage. And if we have to build a fish pass and bring in the ecologists, all the better!  I want to put life back in the river. If we could raise the water levels at certain strategic points, that would encourage the development of wetlands. We’ll have to see what technical tools are now out there to help us do that. Nothing stays the same, that’s what I like in this business.

_{1. Approval that has to be sought if the user extracts more than 1000m3/pa. Smaller volumes are classified as ‘various uses’.}

_{2. DOE: the minimum flow level set by the SDAGE, which must be maintained to guarantee the coexistence of all uses and the good functioning of the aquatic environment.}

_{3. GAP:  good practice framework for agricultural standards created for the fruit and vegetable sector at the instigation of Northern European major distributors in 1997.}