On Friday, 7 November, the Association des Champagnes Biologiques đŸ welcomed a delegation from the SociĂ©tĂ© Française pour le Droit de lâEnvironnement (SFDE) âïž.
Founded in 1974 by lawyers, this society pursues its missions of research, outreach and reflection on legal issues related to the environment đż and citizens’ living conditions.
The Faculty of Law of the University of Reims đ hosted this year’s SFDE annual conference.
The last afternoon concluded with a visit to a certified organic estate, Domaine Bonnet-Ponson, located in Chamery đ, one of the greenest and most wooded villages in the Champagne AOC area.đłThe delegation was welcomed by the estate manager, Cyril Bonnet, who is also an ACB administrator.
The president and director of the ACB were also present and were able to present the role of our local body in defending and promoting organic viticulture in Champagne.
This meeting was an opportunity to address two major regulatory issues of concern to our organic Champagne producers:
The re-approval of copper-based products by ANSES last July, with the removal of almost all of them, except for just two, whose conditions of use are so restrictive that they would put organic winegrowers in a technical deadlock and threaten the sustainability of our farming method.
The Agroforestry 2024 circular, which now includes trees and hedges in the calculation of authorised vineyard area đł. This is good news on paper, but the conditions, with maximum thresholds and precise calculation methods, complicate the creation of agroforestry projects and place pioneering estates that have been planting for a long time in an illegal position.
These are two major issues that the ACB will continue to defend in order to preserve an ever greener Champagne vineyard đż, protecting biodiversity, water đ§ and human health.