Paris: Global warming is threatening the production of some of France's most famed cheeses because increasingly frequent extreme weather is affecting how much fresh local grass cows eat.

Producers say it is becoming physically impossible to respect appellation rules imposed on a number of cheeses that limit the amount of dry hay livestock can consume.

And they are increasingly having to ask French food authorities to relax those strict conditions so they are allowed to sell their cheeses.

Fourme d’Ambert blue-veined French cheese from the region of Auvergne is among the cheeses at risk.Credit:Bloomberg

"This year, half of [France's] dairy AOPs [protected designations of origin] have been hit by drought," said Patrick Chassard, head of the national appellation committee.

Among the first to sound the alarm were producers of Bleu d'Auvergne, Fourme d'Ambert and Montbrison, Époisses and Laguiole cheeses.

By this July, dairy farmers in Livradois-Forez, Auvergne, central France, had not seen rain for nine months and were forced to dip into their hay stocks to feed their livestock, whereas they usually wait until autumn to do so.

Paul Lavialle, of the Laguiole -appellation, told L'Opinion: "To produce a Laguiole appellation, our Aubrac and Simmental cows must remain in the prairies for at least 120 days. In normal years, they stay there for 150 days. In 2019, it will have been 100 on average.

"It didn't rain. They have nothing to graze on. For the same reason we weren't able to mow enough fodder.

"Yet our full-fat raw milk cheese isn't meant to be from [cows that eat] silage. So we had to ask for changes to the appellation rules."

The changes were temporarily granted by Inao, the French body that draws up the rules, meaning they could buy some fodder outside the appellation area and reduce the number of days cows spent in the fields.

The risk is that the image of the region, famed for lush grass and high-quality milk, could suffer.

"Climatic conditions are increasingly variable from one year to the next," said Inao. "Making such allowances clearly cannot become the norm as it damages the appellation system, namely the durable commitment to a product and a given geographic area, combined with rigorous methods."

"We will have to adapt as the repetition of these exceptional episodes [of drought, storms and heavy rain] is complicating life on our farms," said Aurélien Vorger, head of the Fourme d'Ambert and Bleu d'Auvergne union.

That could come by adding different strains of plants in fields to extend the grazing period, such as alfalfa.

Telegraph, London

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