Tuesday 22nd September - Rice and Salt and Reeds and Wine

The Camargue produces one third of all the rice for the national consumption and there is an area of 23,000 hectares in production.
The biggest and most important activity is the production of salt. An annual amount of 450,000 tonnes is produced on only 5000 hectares. He different landowners joined with a businessman from Montpellier to create the "Salins du Midi" in 1856 and it still exists today.
The biggest reed swamp in Europe is here in the Camargue and it extends for 30 kms. The reeds known as :La sagne"are collected in the winter by the "sagneurs" and 80% of the harvest is sent to Holland where it is used for thatching roofs. The remaining 20% is used locally for the roofs of the cattlemen's huts.
The vineyards of the Camargue as as far as the eye can see. They were first cultivated by the Romans but the phylloxera epidemics that swept the land from 1870 to 1879 did not affect the vineyards cultivated in sand as the insect could not survive here.
Asparagus is also cultivated in the vineyards and harvest about 600 tones a year.