Rémi Angelvin was touring his fields of lavandin, situated in the Valensole plateau in Provence, south-east France, close to the foothills of the Alps, a site celebrated for its summer images of hundreds of hectares of parallel lines of glorious mauve plants. “The almond tree that you see there,” he told Mediapart, pointing to a tree sitting beyond the lines of plantations, “it’s been photographed millions of times.”
The old and knotted tree, a vestige of a bygone use of the land, looked down on the rows of lavandin (the French for “hybrid lavender”), which in Angelvin’s fields is a cross between narrow-leaved lavender (sometimes called English lavender) and aspic lavender. Here, it has been grown since the early 20th century, and primarily sold to the perfume industry in the town of Grasse, further south, and to washing powder manufacturers.
In mid-July, the plants flower and explode into a bright mauve-blue colour, as far as the eye can see, drawing tens of thousands of tourists yearly to the region. They come to this southern part of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence département (an administrative area equivalent to a county) to behold – and photograph – the glorious ephemeral sight.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
But now the dry farming of lavender and hybrid lavender (hereafter referred to as lavandin) on the arid limestone plateau, which rises to an altitude of between 500 and 800 metres, is faced with a two-pronged threat.
“In 2022, the surface area of lavender and lavandin in major production zones began falling,” reported FranceAgriMer, the French agriculture ministry agency with responsibility for policy coordination and application, and statistical studies, of the agricultural and fisheries sector, in early 2025. The agency said that this was “linked to the market situation, but also with the degraded state of the land plots which is due to climate conditions and attacks from pests”.
The challenge of climate change
The principal pests responsible for the now significant losses of lavandin plants are cecidomyiidae, tiny flying insects more commonly called gall midges, which lay their eggs on the leaves. The general warming of winter temperatures has encouraged their proliferation. “We’re missing the cold,” commented Jean-Pierre Jaubert, another grower on the plateau. “The soil no longer freezes for lengthy periods, which is what used to kill a section of these insects which inhabit the area during wintertime.”
Despite the fact that arid lands are their natural habitat, lavandin plants are also fragilized by the intensification of droughts. “The plants are tired,” added Jaubert. “With one rain shower per month the lavandin is happy, but in the summer that no longer exists.” For several years now, the summers in this picturesque sub-region of Provence have been lasting longer than the traditional period, and now extend from May to October (although 2025 broke the trend with frequent rainfall in the spring).
Water must be shared equitably between humans and non-humans.
Benoît Moreau, director of development for the Société du Canal de Provence (SCP), is optimistic that irrigation can compensate for the shortfall of water from the “spring rain and autumn thunderstorms” on the Valensole plateau. The SCP, a joint public-private sector company that manages the supply, largely transported by canal, of drinking water, and water for agricultural irrigation and industrial use in the Provence region, is planning a 54-million-euro extension of its irrigation network to the west and north of the plateau, prompted by a crisis of extreme drought conditions in 2022. “That hadn’t happened for 70 years,” said Moreau. “We experienced then what climate change will be like.”
At the time, 3,200 hectares (around 7,900 acres) of land on the plateau was already irrigated from the vast artificial lake of Sainte-Croix, lying just south of the plateau, which is supplied by the river Verdon. Under the extension plan, due for completion in 2031, a further “4,000-5,000 hectares will be irrigated”, said Moreau. The extension is funded by the local authorities (at a regional, département and municipal level) and the European union. “What we extract during periods of [drought] crises represents just 3 to 5 centimetres less in the [water level] of the Sainte-Croix lake,” claimed Moreau.
The SCP is involved in a broader extension of its water supplies to allow for the irrigation of a further 30,000 hectares of agricultural land, mostly vineyards, on top of the 70,000 hectares already served, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Bouches-du-Rhône, Vaucluse and Var départements which are spread across the Provence region.
Pesticide residues
Some environmental protection associations in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence département, where the Valensole plateau is situated, regard compensating drought with purely artificial means with dismay. “Water must be shared equitably between humans and non-humans,” said Lou-Anne Buan, spokeswoman for the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence branch of the national federation of environmentalist associations, France Nature Environnement, speaking at a “water festival” organised by local associations in the valley of the river Asse, a tributary of the major Durance river that runs through, and divides, the département.
“With less water in the streams, they warm up more, which causes significant mortality that we have observed of trout in the lower Verdon river and the Durance,” said Christian Mahut, from a local federation of angling associations and aquatic protection groups, also present at the festival. “They can’t live in water that’s above 20° [Celsius].”
The falling water levels in rivers, many of which are caused by human intervention, also increase the concentration of the residues of a herbicide called dichlobenil, which was massively employed during 1960s and 1970s, and which was finally banned from use in France in 2010. In a report on its 2023 findings of pesticide contaminations, the Agence de l'Eau Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse, a government agency whose mission includes the protection of aquatic environments in south-east France from pollution, noted that, regarding the presence of dichlobenil in some water courses “its use on lavender and lavandin is the origin of this contamination, notably on the Valensole plateau”.
Enlargement : Illustration 2
“It [dichlobenil] percolates in the table water and re-emerges in the sources that feed the [river] Asse,” said Francis Bouvier, a retired doctor and chairman of a 1,200-strong association of anglers using the river Bléone, another tributary of the Durance. “It impacts upon invertebrates and then upon the whole food chain.”
The extension of the Provence canal water supply network to provide drinking water for the village of Valensole, from which the plateau takes its name, is presented as a response to the pollution.
A crash in the price of essential oils
It remains to be seen if the lavender and lavandin growers actually want the water, because it comes at a price. For Rémi Angelvin, “things were done in reverse. The volume of the territory’s [agricultural] hectares were taken into account, but the farmers were not consulted.” He says the economic crisis already affecting the sector discourages growers from “adding extra costs” to their production.
Towards the end of the decade beginning in 2010, the rise in demand for essential oils encouraged more planting of lavender and lavandin, said Angelvin, even outside the historic growing areas of south-east France, appearing “in the Rhône Valley and even in the Beauce [agricultural region south of Paris]”. For the growers, offer ended up surpassing demand, and the prices fell by as much as one half.
Because of both natural factors and the economic crisis, reported FranceAgriMer, “between 2021 and 2023, production [of French lavandin essential oils] fell by 24% while remaining superior to the market demand”. Currently, the agency noted, the average price for one kilo of essential oils hovers between 15 and 18 euros.
“At 15 euros, that only covers the costs,” claimed Jean-Pierre Jaubert. Some growers are considering stockpiling their produce, which can be conserved for a lengthy period, while hoping for prices to rise in the meantime, and to turn to other agricultural activity, including the production of of almonds, hard wheat, pistachios, fennel and clary sage (for essential oils), for which irrigation would be welcome.
Alternative solutions
In the small village of Saint-Jurs, situated in the north-east of the plateau, lavandin grower Yann Sauvaire, whose produce is organic, has diversified his crops by also planting thyme, rosemary, and a flowering plant that is used for its essential oils, Helichrysum italicum, called l’mmortelle in French (and sometimes known as the “curry plant” in English because of its rich odour that partly resembles that of curry). His fields are reached by a muddy track that winds through a sort of Provençal grove that looks out onto the cliffs of the foothills of the spectacular Verdon Gorge river canyon.
To give his plantations extra resilience, he leaves a vegetal covering between the rows of lavandin, which reduces the temperature of the earth, and returns organic matter into the land which has previously suffered from productivism and pesticides. This restored soil acts as a sponge, retaining humidity longer than that which is cleared.
Enlargement : Illustration 3
Sauvaire has also introduced hedges in order, he says, “to create an environment that favours auxiliaries”. They are, for example, titmice birds and bats which eat pests. “I have never ripped up a plot [of lavandin] because of gall midges,” he boasted. The surrounding trees, partly fruit trees or truffle oaks (whose roots are mycorrhized with truffles), provide shade and serve as what he described as “water and nutrient pumps”.
“Irrigation is of interest to help with this transition, for the starting of plantations and hedges,” said Sauvaire. The practice of these organic agricultural methods has the support of a programme, called “Regain” (for “revival”), launched by the Verdon natural park authorities and the local chamber of agriculture, and to which the SCP also contributes. It is also the subject of a promotional video produced by the environmentalist federation France Nature Environnement.
The lines of intense mauve that appear in so many Instagram photos taken by tourists of the traditional lavender fields (a simple internet search of “Valensole plateau” will provide a plethora), may now begin to include a streak of herbal green. Perhaps.
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- The original French version of this report can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse