IN the middle of the most serious crisis to hit the French wine industry a number of winemakers are fighting back.

They have recognised that in their search for bigger crops to make more wine they have been damaging the soil.

For over 50 years they have been treating their vineyards with petrochemical fertilisers and haphazardly spraying toxic pesticides that poison the soil and enter the food chain.

Although some of them are becoming fully organic, more are taking the "thinking farmers" route and working towards "terra vitis", or "living earth" accreditation.

These grape farmers follow a regime that respects the environment.

They watch their crops and only treat those in need, rather than mass spraying.

They have replaced petrochemical products with natural materials which put goodness back into the ground.

This is costly and often reduces the yield at harvest time.

But the quality of the wines they are then able to produce is so much better that they are already receiving higher prices for them.

All of this would make a great deal of sense if were not for the British wine drinkers were not always searching for something which is cheaper.

While this is understandable, it doesn't make much sense if these wines are feeding our systems with toxic chemicals.

Perhaps we should be reading those informative back labels more closely, looking for the words "terra vitis" and choosing our wines for purity rather than price.

Serious wine producers throughout France are already recognising the value of terra vitis and respecting their soil.

They are spending more time in their vineyards observing their vines and using only micro-doses of approved least aggressive sprays, when and where they are really needed.

All over France good wine producers are gradually placing quality before quantity.

This will not amuse those supermarket wine buyers whose sole aim would appear to have the cheapest wines on the block.

In that search they may also often ignore basic human rights by buying from countries where working conditions and rates of pay are far below those that we consider acceptable.

Perhaps it is time that we all took a line out of the French wine industry's book and started to respect the living earth?