Climatic risks and forage securities in different livestock-rearing regions. The case of drought

摘要

In France, drought hits one region or another at least every other year. This hazard has therefore to be taken into account in the management of forage systems, the more so as the systems are particularly susceptible to it. Being based on pastures and on maize, the water requirements of which are greatest when rainfall is irregular (from May to July), they are thus very vulnerable, especially when specialized and comprising intensive livestock rearing. To counter a forage shortage, always difficult to evaluate, several solutions are available: straw, unripe cereals, grain maize silage, abandoned grazing land, etc. There are few agrifood co-products-to be used occasionally. Different regions and livestock-rearing systems offer different possible securities (dual-purpose crops, straw and hay, lands outside the usable farm area), but the main thing is to diminish the vulnerability of the systems (they have to be secure 9 years out of 10) by choosing crops that are diversified and adapted to the constraints of environments themselves diverse.