Harvest 2021: in the Tarn, the gendarmes of the “wine-growing pool” watch over the Gaillac vineyards

As summer has just finished its race to give way to fall, the time has come for thousands of small seasonal hands to harvest the fruit of some 750,000 hectares of French vines.

The harvest period, because it requires a large workforce from everywhere and the mobilization of often very expensive equipment, is conducive to theft and scams of all kinds.

Read alsoInvesting in the vineyard: the list of appellations that gain the most value

To mitigate this threat, the gendarmerie of Gaillac, in the Tarn, created just a year ago the “

wine pool

”.

A group of nine gendarmes who work on an ad hoc basis - two to three half-days per week, all year round - as close as possible to the 300 farms that make up the Gaillac vineyard.

a daily safety approach

"Viticulture is none other than the economic lung of our district,

" explains adjutant Jean-Philippe Berlic from the Gaillac police station and who heads the group.

A lung largely weakened by the Covid-19 crisis and which it is therefore necessary to protect.

In fact, the military are responsible, in addition to making rounds in the vineyard,

"to contact the operators to advise on the protective reflexes to adopt to avoid burglaries or scams",

continues the Warrant Officer Berlic.

An initiative that is

“part of a daily safety approach.

We work as close as possible to our populations, always at the heart of the territories.

Physical contact remains very important for getting to know each other, discussing and trusting each other, ”

explains Captain Laura Barbuto.

Read alsoBefore the harvest, the winegrowers try to adapt to the sanitary rules

The gendarmes of the wine pool come from three different brigades.

They have not received any specific training but are supported in their mission by a security advisor from the Albi gendarmerie group.

He specializes in new technologies and provides advice to the police in the pool or directly to operators, especially when it comes to fraudulent canvassing on the internet.

A phenomenon to which wine growers are particularly exposed, who increasingly sell their products on the Web.

A network of electric pruner thieves dismantled

Group messaging with Gaillac operators, called “

AGRIVI

”, has also been set up by the “wine pool” gendarmes via the “

Tchap

”

interministerial service

.

“We talk directly with wine growers and farmers, it's very practical. For example, we are told of suspicious vehicles, the theft of equipment committed in operations. This has already enabled us to move forward in some investigations, ”

underlines Captain Barbuto

.

And the initiative seems to be paying off. It is for example thanks to this online group that a network of thieves of electric pruning shears at 1,200 euros each was dismantled last December.

Read alsoUsed vehicles, targets of foreign networks and organized gang scams

“

In the rural world, everyone is watching each other, which is already a form of protection,

” notes Christophe Merle, owner of Château Balsamine, a twenty hectare estate located in the heart of the Gaillac vineyards.

But the latter to concede that

"in view of the national climate of insecurity which reigns and which no longer spares the countryside at all, between agribashing, voluntary damage, siphoned fuel tanks and all the rest, it is It's reassuring to know that the gendarmes are on the lookout ”.

Between January 1 and November 30, 2019, attacks against the agricultural community were up 1.5%, for a total of 14,498 incidents recorded, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

“These phenomena, we must take them very seriously: they ruin the lives of farmers, worried every day about what can happen to them. They feed agribashing, mistrust and hostility, ”

Christophe Castaner, then Minister of the Interior, recalled in November 2019.

In order to

"provide a comprehensive and coordinated response to all security issues affecting the agricultural world"

, the national gendarmerie has also created the Démeter cell.

Across the country, 214 police officers from the gendarmerie, supported by 3,000 correspondents, are deployed to provide anti-malware audits on the lighting and closure of operations.