Occitanie's MAEC-DFCI Pastoral Grazing Contracts — Paying Farmers to Graze Wildfire Fuel Breaks (Gard, France)

Southern French Mediterranean landscapes face rising wildfire risk partly because farmland abandonment removed the grazing that once kept scrubland open; DFCI (Défense des Forêts Contre l'Incendie) policy folds fuel-break maintenance into rural land management rather than treating it purely as a firefighting problem.

Under the EU Common Agricultural Policy's MAEC (Mesures Agro-Environnementales et Climatiques) scheme, France's regional agriculture directorate (DRAAF Occitanie) contracts farmers for five years to graze designated fuel-break corridors: a base payment of €153/ha/year, rising to €204/ha where farmers add mechanical clearing or pastoral burning, plus up to €72/ha for improved pastoral management, capped at roughly €15,000 per farm per year.

In Gard department, around 20 farmers currently maintain roughly 800ha under contract; one profiled farmer, enrolled in 2023, earns about €9,000/year for 60ha. That is down from about 60 farmers under contract a decade earlier, after regional co-financing was reduced — a reminder that PES-style fire-fuel schemes rise and fall with sustained public budgets.

Available sources document the payment mechanism, its specifications and participation trends in detail, but do not provide an independent measurement of fires avoided or fuel-load reduction attributable to the scheme; this entry is scored on its documented mechanism and governance rather than on unmeasured fire outcomes.

Read the full analysis: https://draaf.occitanie.agriculture.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/a0_occitanie_maec_-_catalogue_v2.pdf