A wide range of agricultural pursuits is carried out across the marsh.
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Beef Production
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See separate section about bull breeding on the marsh.
Horses
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The Camarguais is a traditional French breed of working horse indigenous to the Camargue. Its origins are unknown. For centuries, possibly thousands of years, these small horses have lived wild on the marsh. There they developed the stamina, hardiness and agility for which they are known today. Traditionally, they live in semi-feral conditions and are the traditional mounts of the gardians, the farmers who herd the black Camargue bulls on the marsh.
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Camargue horses are always grey. This means that they have black skin underlying a white hair coat as adult horses.
Sheep
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Horses and black bulls convey the image of the Rhône delta throughout the world. But sheep have long been the dominant livestock species for which the best pastures were reserved, namely the higher lying land which is today the domain of rice fields. During the centuries when wool was a precious commodity, sheep were the pre-eminent source of income for the Camargue farmer. That is, of course, less so now in the era of artificial fibres.
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The predominant sheep breed is the Arles Merino (currently approximately 12,000 head), which is a cross between the local Arlesian breed with the Spanish merino appreciated for the fineness of its wool. The Arles Merino, however, still remains a breed appreciated for the quality of its meat. Most the delta's livestock farms are today located east of the Grand Rhône and in the Crau .
Shellfish Farming
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While not as prevalent on the coast to the west of the Camargue, shellfish farming is considerable in the territory of the Camargue Park is located in Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône (Anse de Carteau). It mainly unvolves raising of mussels (around 2,100 tonnes/year), flat oysters and clams (around 300 tonnes/year).
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Around fifty farmers use around a hundred tables spread over more than 1,700 hectares between four and seven meters deep. Production, of 2500 to 3000 tonnes each year, ranks Port-Saint-Louis du Rhône as the first producer in the department. This production represents nearly 10% of French national production.
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On the sandy beaches, about a hundred “telliniers” between Grau-du-Roi and Port Saint Louis, harvest a locally very popular shellfish, the telline, which they rake up by hand.
Professional Fishing
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Professional fishing is practiced at sea, in the river, in ponds, or on the sandy coast. The choice of fished species and techniques is linked to different environments and fluctuates depending on the degrees of salinity. Depending on the location and type of fishing, the status of professional fishermen differs. Fishing activity in the Camargue has always been particularly important around Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Professional fishing takes place in four types of environments.
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At sea it is mainly carried out with a net. In Port Saint-Louis and Saintes Marie-de-la-Mer, the catch is primarily sole, but also sea bass, sea bream, tuna and turbot.
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In inland ponds, fishing with netted traps called rabaques is practiced by some fishermen. The catch is mainly eels and atherines.
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In the River Rhône, fishermen use traps and drift nets to catch sea bass, eels and flounder.
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If fishing is a significant activity in the Camargue, the data concerning the quantities fished, the monitoring of populations or even the income linked to this activity are very incomplete.
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The Petit Rhône is also hobby fished for carp, pike, zander (pike perch) and catfish where examples weighing up to 250 kg have been caught.
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Viticulture
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There is a significant amount of wine making in the area with vineyards located at either end of the Camargue. To the east, Domain de Bouchud and Isle Saint Pierre are near the Grand Rhône while a large number of vinyards are clustered to the west of the Petit Rhône. The westerly varieties are called vins-de-sable as the terroir is predominantly sandy. The vines here are some of the most ancient in France as the sand and salt at their roots made them immune from the American phylloxera bug in the mid nineteenth century; a bug that wiped out eighty five percent of all Europe’s vineyards. These only recovered by an extensive use of grafting European grape varieties (to reserve the taste) onto imported (resistant) American rootstocks.
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The AOC produces 200,000 hectolitres of wine, 90% of which is produced organically.
Rice Production
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Rice has been grown on the Camargue wetlands since the thirteenth century. In the nineteenth century the rice fields were useful for controlling the excess runoff from the flooding Rhône as well as providing desalination pans. However, as rice had a reputation of causing blindness when consumed hot, it was predominantly used as animal feed. But by the beginning of the twentieth century, however, rice cultivation covered 800 hectares in the Camargue.
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France has had a long tradition of importing foreign workers from its possessions in Indochina to help staff factories at home. Almost a hundred thousand workers were imported to work in French munitions factories during the First World War. A similar influx from the Far East came at the end of 1939 to replace French factory workers who had been conscripted into the army. This was in addition to the one hundred and fifty thousand Indochinese who were already serving in the armed forces. Many of these were used to boost wartime rice production in the Camargue.
Post war investment from the Marshall Plan saw rice production to 25,000 ha producing 120,000 tonnes of rice.
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Production has declined more recently, especially because of a reduction in EC subsidies. Currently less than 12,000 ha of land is under cultivation It is therefore still a considerable crop but it remains (the Camargue red rice is favoured) as a boutique crop for export.
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It might be noted that one of many ecological conflicts exists between the rice producers and the famous pink flamingos. Thousands of tree-nesting herons Little Egrets and Cattle Egrets use rice fields for foraging particularly during their reproductive season. Privation is estimated at a value of half a million Euros!
Arable Crops
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The presence of rice in the Camargue is also important due to its role in land desalination. After three years of rice cultivation the land is sufficiently desalinated for the growing of limited amounts of arable crops like durum wheat, rapeseed, sorghum and sunflowers. This also prevents the growth of weeds that establish themselves in the desalinated soil. After three years, the salinity reappears, and the crop must revert to rice. Alfalfa for grazing cattle is also introduced for two or three years until the salinity rises and again it is necessary to return the land to rice for desalination.
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Reed Cutting
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With 5,000 ha, the Camargue reed beds are the largest in France. Cutting green reeds, as summer fodder, has been practiced since the Middle Ages but today it is mainly carried out on dry reeds from mid-November to the end of March. Manual cutting by boat with a “sagnadou” is hardly practiced today and the crop is now mostly harvested mechanically. The Camargue provides three quarters of French production, the vast majority of which comes from the marshes of Petite Camargue in the Gard.
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Tied in bundles, the reed is used to make roofs in many regions of France and in various countries of Northern Europe but ironically very rarely in the Camargue. It is also used to manufacture mats, windbreak hedges, hunting blinds and fences.
