Farming: the water divide
Directed by Christophe Nick and Mischa Nick
The war over mega-basins is raging around the Marais Poitevin. Who is right? Why is there such a shortage of water? Behind the issue of water for all, two models of agriculture are clashing and tearing the countryside apart. Rural violence is no match for urban violence.
Trailer
The Marais Poitevin and its surrounding area is the focus of national tensions over water resources. Two visions of the world are clashing over the sharing of water: on the one hand, modern, high-tech farmers, and on the other, peasants, between tradition and innovation. Between them, old grudges and a battle that only intensifies as water runs out and the war of the mega-basins rages on. What is a fair distribution of water in a time of global warming? The fruit of several months' immersion, this investigation is both historical and current, placing the choices made by some and others in the sequence of public policies since the beginnings of the Fifth Republic.
To understand how these irreconcilable positions came about, Christophe and Mischa Nick provide a comprehensive overview of farming in and around the Marais Poitevin since the 1960s. (...) In a calm tone that contrasts with the violence of the relations between "pro" and "anti", the authors of the documentary give a voice to many witnesses of the past and actors of today, whether they claim to be "peasants" seeking a balance with the environment or "farmers" caught up in a race towards gigantism and productivity. Their film shows the impasse in which the latter have got themselves, without judging them, but rather blaming political choices that have never been debated - Télérama (3T)
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