Although it is (often) all red on our plates, the star of summer also fears sunburn. Local or imported from Morocco, Spain or Italy, tomatoes decorate French stalls all year round, shamelessly defying the rules of the seasons. But with global warming, tomatoes are becoming increasingly difficult to grow in southern Europe. Even in France, several studies suggest that we will have to adapt to continue growing them, in twenty, thirty or fifty years, like many other crops.
Tomatoes from the fields, greenhouses, small market gardeners or large producers, prepared in salads or sauces… All are in one way or another vulnerable to the vagaries of increasingly chaotic weather as the climate warms, under the effect of greenhouse gases emitted by human activities.
"Whatever the type of crop, the tomato is irrigated"explains François Lecompte, deputy director of the Plants and Horticultural Crop Systems laboratory at the National Institute for Agricultural, Food and Environmental Research (INRAE). Consequently, areas hit by repeated droughts are the most vulnerable, depending on whether or not they can count on the availability of water for irrigation. On the temperature side, "beyond 32-34°C, there are problems with fruit setting [passage de la fleur au fruit]risks of fruit burn and apical necrosis", "continues the scientist, who also cites exposure to new parasites or diseases, or even pollinators stunned by the heat.
After a summer of 2022 marked by these hot and dry conditions, French production of tomatoes for the fresh market had thus decreased by 3% compared to 2021, despite a 7% increase in cultivated areas. "All production basins are affected, to varying degrees," detailed the annual report of France Agrimer (PDF)recalling that the hotter it is, the more tomatoes the French consume. The following summer, it is the south of Europe that suffocates, from Greece to Spain. The production of these countries suffers to such an extent that in the summer of 2023, Spanish distributors turn to Belgian producers to fill their shelves, explained to the Flemish media VRT News the head of the Belgian cooperative BelOrta. "Germany also bought more tomatoes from us because they could no longer get them from Spanish growers".
Read more at actualnewsmagazine.com