Controversial mega-cattle farm project approved by Haute-Vienne prefect

He ruled "in law" and "the project complied with the law." On Thursday, May 22, the prefect of Haute-Vienne, François Pesneau, authorized the creation of a megafarm in the neighboring communes of Peyrilhac and Nieul, 20 kilometers south of Limoges.

Two years ago, T'Rhéa, the agri-food subsidiary of the meat trading group Carnivor, applied to acquire SAS Terres de Chavaignac. This includes a 605-hectare farm and an allotment center through which up to 700 cattle pass through each day on their way abroad. The agribusiness company then planned to transform the whole thing into an XXL fattening facility for 3,100 ruminants.

An ambition thwarted in June 2024 after the Haute-Vienne prefecture rejected its environmental authorization application filed in August 2023. This refusal was motivated, among other things, by the unfavorable opinion issued as part of a public inquiry that recorded some 12,000 contributions, 99.5% of which were negative opinions.

Disowned, T'Rhéa revised its copy. "We met the expectations of the State services, and we even went beyond what was regulated in terms of water runoff, landscape integration and the spreading plan," says Pascal Nowak, responsible for territorial development in the agri-food group. The project leader also reduced the planned tonnage on the site from 3,100 to 2,120 head of cattle. Officially for "reasons of available spreading surface" , "the methanizer project which was to go hand in hand with the fattening workshop was not validated" , maintains the representative of T'Rhéa.

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