French Winegrowers Turn to Drought-Resistant Moroccan Argan Trees

Drought gives ideas to French farmers. Vincent Connes, Philippe Morat, Jean Delmau, David Tofinos, Thomas Montes and François-Xavier Dauré have created a small collective of winegrowers north of Perpignan, in the Baixas area, in order to find diversification paths to stem the water crisis and offset the poor wine sales, reports L’Indépendant. "The six of us were suppliers for the Dom Brial cooperative cellar. Each of us on our own had planted a few things to try to diversify. Since we were on the same wavelength, we said that getting together to help each other was a good idea," breathes Vincent.

Last summer, they decided to experiment with the cultivation of the argan tree, the endemic tree of southwestern Morocco, which is not very demanding in water and resistant to high temperatures. An alternative to the aridification of the Pyrénées-Orientales which should intensify in the coming years. "We started from a simple observation: there is no water in the department. So we looked at what the countries around the Mediterranean were planting to see if we could adapt it to the Catalan Country. In Morocco, there are argan trees everywhere, even though the climate is very dry. We wanted to try it with us where our climate can also correspond to the cultivation of the argan tree," say the winegrowers.

However, these French poultry farmers have encountered a major difficulty, that of finding the seed. "It’s very hard to find. In Morocco, it’s a private preserve, they absolutely don’t want us to produce it anywhere else but with them. It’s not in their interest and we understand them. I finally found some in Spain," said David Tofinos, without specifying where he exactly obtained the seed. The experiment of cultivating the argan tree in the Pyrénées-Orientales started last October. Tofinos gives the start by planting a few acres of argan tree on these lands in Baixas. Philippe Morat, François-Xavier Dauré and Thomas Montes follow in his footsteps. The adventure will begin for the others in the spring and fall.

"For the argan tree to live, it just needs 120 mm of water per year. For it to produce, it needs between 200 and 240. For now, we have no hindsight but we decide to test it. We don’t know at all if it’s going to work. We’ll know in five or six years. We believe in it. If it works, it would help us a lot," says Vincent Connes. He plans to plant about forty acres.