The demonstrators promised a major “educational, festive and artistic hike” against a project to create “the two largest megabasins in France”. More than 5,000 activists according to the organizers, and 2000 according to the gendarmerie, mobilized this Saturday, May 11 at the call of the collective “Bassines non merci”, organizer of the event. The object of their wrath? The construction of two water reserves, one of 14 hectares, the other of 18 hectares, intended to irrigate 800 hectares in the Limagne plain, east of Clermont-Ferrand, where Limagrain, the 4th largest seed company in the world.
These megabasin projects are supported by the Association Syndicale Libre des Turleuros, which brings together 36 farmers, including the president of the powerful Limagrain cooperative. They have not yet been the subject of a formal request for authorization and their opponents hope to obtain a moratorium.
Resting on hundreds of thousands of square meters of plastic sheeting, these two large megabasins would be filled between November 1 and March 31 by sampling in Allier, respecting the authorized flow rate of 45.7 m3/second, according to the Free Trade Union Association of Turlurons. They would also be covered with photovoltaic panels in order to reduce evaporation. For Limagrain, it is “essential that farmers can continue to produce quality crops in sufficient quantity” and therefore “irrigate when necessary”, in the name of “food security” in times of climate change.
“Stop plundering our water resources”
The protesters, including Extinction Rebellion, the Earth Uprisings and the Peasant Confederation, for their part denounce “large, useless and imposed projects”. According to them, the two planned reservoirs aim to “privatize more than 2.3 million m3 of water for 36 farms, most of them linked to Limagrain”. “These gigabassins will be filled directly by pumping” in Allier, “a Natura 2000 classified area which locally supports the drinking water supply of more than 200,000 inhabitants,” denounces the Bassines non merci collective, in a press release.
With the other organizers of this demonstration, the Confédération paysanne is calling for a moratorium on megabasins throughout France, accompanied by a major public debate. “The resource is becoming rarer and the volumes that can be collected are inexorably set to decline. To believe otherwise is irresponsible,” they assert together.
“We must stop plundering our water resources, we must prioritize subsistence agriculture,” declared the national secretary of environmentalists, Marine Tondelier, this Saturday morning on Franceinfo. Activists opposed to these projects also accuse Limagrain of “unofficially” pushing the project in order to “secure its production of seed corn intended for export”.
As indicated The worldone of the two projects, once envisaged in Saint-Georges-sur-Allier, on 18 hectares for 1.25 million square meters, the equivalent of 500 Olympic swimming pools 2 meters deep, will undoubtedly have to find other lands to be artificialized to the extent that the soils are not suitable for it.
This project did not obtain the approval of the Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM). The Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, confirmed this to the National Assembly on Tuesday May 7, in response to a question from the MP for Puy-de-Dôme, Marianne Maximi (La France insoumise).