Rencontre sur une exploitation agricole dévastée par le passage du cyclone Chido. FNSEA
Ensemble pour reconstruire l'agriculture de Mayotte. FNSEA
Mayotte farmers paid a heavy price when Cyclone Chido hit their island. Back from Mayotte, the president of the Hérault Chamber of Agriculture, Jérôme Despey, gives his testimony.
“I still have butterflies in my stomach and chills when I think back and talk about everything I saw there“, admits the president of the Hérault Chamber of Agriculture, Jérôme Despey, in charge, among other things, for years, of relations with Reunion and Mayotte within the FNSEA. The island that he has known for a long time, with its landscapes, its men and women, and its agriculture, no longer has the familiar “face” that is dear to him.
Chido passed through here on December 14th. The cyclone, which crossed the island from one side to the other, ravaged everything in its path, leaving towns and countryside devastated. “When I arrived at the airport on January 3, the first things I saw were houses without roofs and almost emptied of their furniture, a totally destroyed landscape and a population wounded in its flesh. In the farms I visited, it was the same spectacle of desolation that I was able to see. To access some, we had to walk part of the way. In one of them, the breeding workshop was devastated and disemboweled chickens were lying on the ground. It was like in a disaster movie, except that it was reality. This 45-year-old farmer had spent 15 years setting up his workshop and he lost everything in a single day. Despite this, he wants to rebuild and resume his activity. Such people force us to act“, he describes.
A subsistence agriculture on its knees
So rather than feeling sorry for these farmers and multiplying pious wishes, the FNSEA and JA (Young Farmers) networks have mobilized to release emergency aid to the 1,350 farms and 3,000 farmers on the island, based on the needs that the latter have defined.
This is how 100 chainsaws were shipped to Mayotte so that farmers could clear the roads leading to their land and begin the necessary work on their farms. Thanks to the public authorities, the delivery of the equipment was accelerated, allowing its arrival on December 24.
But solidarity cannot stop there because of the significant damage to crops and farms. “90% of poultry farms were destroyed and 85% of the livestock decimated. The rates reached 70% and 40% respectively for laying hen farms. As for the fruit and vegetable sector, all productions combined, 90% of greenhouses were destroyed. When we know that Mayotte agriculture is primarily a food crop, these levels of destruction have a considerable impact both on agriculture and on the population in general“, comments Jérôme Despey.
Mayotte is in fact 85% self-sufficient in food for fruits and vegetables, and barely 15% for meat. Everything therefore needs to be rebuilt and replanted, because “beyond the economic emergency, there is also a vital emergency. To remedy this, farmers must be able to resume their production as quickly as possible“, he specifies.
Facilitate the return of land to production
But before rebuilding livestock, the first step will be to rebuild livestock buildings. For the market gardening and tree growing sector, “we must continue to clear away everything that is blocking access to the plots, then clean them before putting them back into production. To do this, we will gather and send as much material as possible that is useful for putting them back into production“, he explains. Sending seeds is also on the agenda, knowing that crops have their season, such as bananas and cassava, which are planted in February.
Beyond what the network can do, state aid is essential. “The €1,000 per farm announced by the government will not be enough to help Mahoran farmers. It is derisory. We are demanding an emergency fund for them so that they have the capacity to resume their activity. And because they have this capacity to raise their heads, this forces us to take action“, concludes Jérôme Despey.