Côte-d'Or: To tackle climate change, the cheese industry must "look ahead"

Faced with the many upheavals linked to climate change, adaptation is necessary, urgent for cheese producers, but not always easy to implement.

Thibaut Barithel has chosen to restart, in a modernized way, the drying of hay in the barn, in a huge hangar with a capacity of 400 tonnes, using a solar collector. Photo J. B. — Thibaut Barithel has chosen to restart, in a modernized way, the drying of hay in the barn, in a huge hangar with a capacity of 400 tonnes, using a solar collector. Photo JB

"We've always known how to adapt to various crises, such as Covid or the war in Ukraine. Cheese is a living product. We're already adapting to the change of seasons that we experience every three months, to lactation, which lasts nine months, and also to calving," explains Philippe Delin, director of the eponymous cheese dairy. "Today, in the face of climate change, it's essential to work together with producers to prepare for the future. We know very well that dairy production, just like vineyards, for example, will change. We may be less impacted, less quickly, here in Burgundy, compared to the south because we won't have the same water issue, in particular, but we have to have a forward-looking vision."

“With 70,000 liters less milk, we make the same tonnage of cheese”

Nadine Comparot, factory manager at Berthaut, for her part, emphasizes the balancing act that adapting to change represents...

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