Usefulness of traditional varieties of vine
18.2.2014
Question for written answer E-001803-14
to the Commission
Rule 117
Eric Andrieu (S&D)
Article 81(2)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural products expressly bans using the Noah, Jacquez, Herbemont, Othello, Isabelle and Clinton varieties of vine for the production of wine grapes that may be used to produce wines, musts or vinegar.
Research work carried out at the University of Bordeaux (Year 1999, Order no 21) by the Pharmaceutical Sciences Training and Research Unit demonstrated that the historic reasons for the ban on Noah, the variety previously thought to be the most dangerous, were unfounded.
These grape varieties form an integral part of biodiversity, especially in deprived rural areas of Europe. In my own region of Cévennes in southern France, this ban threatens the entire collective memory and heritage of the local population. This assault on biodiversity amounts to a depletion and impoverishment of that ancestral heritage. The cultivation of these vines is a part of the landscape of the Cévennes. Often planted on the edges of the terraces, young vines would be trained on chestnut-wood trellises, enabling maximum use to be made of good agricultural soil. Now that climate change is upon us, the future of wine-growing in the hills of the Cévennes surely lies in traditional country plants and the avoidance of weedkillers and pesticides.
Vines represent only 3% of France’s usable agricultural land, yet they account for 20% of its total pesticide consumption. Pesticides are applied some twenty times a year, generally spread across the months from April to August.
Vines are especially sensitive to climate change. Measures therefore need to be taken as a matter of urgency to adapt to this change if the wine industry is to be protected.
The Commission’s report entitled ‘Adapting to Climate Change’ recommends ‘choosing crops and varieties better adapted to the expected length of the growing season and water availability, and more resistant to new conditions of temperature and humidity’.
This regulation thus seems to run counter to European targets for adapting to climate change. Does the Commission intend to lift the ban on traditional varieties of vine and thus put the wine industry in a better position to adapt to climate change and the fight against agrochemical pollution?
OJ C 435, 04/12/2014