French farmers are fighting to prevent frost damage to vineyards and orchard trees in several regions of the country.
To do so, they burn candles across the vineyards and spray water to create a shell of ice around the buds.
But these efforts to save the harvest are often not enough and a the large part of the crops are affected.
According to the Council of Bordeaux Wines it is already certain that this spring frost will severely impact the volume of the 2021 wine harvest.
“Peaches, nectarines, apricots will be rare on the shelves this year,” said Daniel Sauvaitre, president of the national association of apples and pears. “We just need to know now if there are enough flowers that are still green to make a harvest,” he told AFP.
“A couple of days are needed to measure precisely the extent of the damage,” agriculture minister Julien Denormandie said on Thursday.
