France’s Famous Cheeses Are Feeling the Pressure of Extreme Heat and Drought

Some of France’s best-known protected cheeses are facing growing pressure from extreme heat and drought.

Summer 2026 was the hottest recorded in France since measurements began in 1900, with temperatures averaging 3.6°C above normal and rainfall almost 40% below average. July alone became the country’s hottest month on record, while widespread soil drought left pastures dry and reduced the amount of fresh grass available to dairy herds. That matters for cheeses such as Salers, Comté, Beaufort, Abondance and Cantal, whose protected AOP rules often require cows to graze locally and limit how much outside feed farmers can use. As pastures deteriorated, some producers had to pause production, switch cheeses, or rely on additional fodder

The pressure became serious enough that France’s Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (INAO) approved temporary rule changes for a growing list of protected products. In August and September, exemptions were granted for cheeses including Abondance, Beaufort, Comté, Cantal, Fourme d’Ambert and Bleu d’Auvergne, allowing producers more flexibility when drought made their usual feed requirements difficult to meet. The measures are temporary and tightly regulated because the AOP system is designed to preserve a product’s connection to place, ingredients and traditional production methods. For Salers producers, that connection is especially strict: fresh pasture is central to the cheese’s identity, which is why some makers chose to stop producing Salers altogether rather than dilute those standards.

Changing what cows eat can also change the cheese itself. In a 2025 INRAE study using Cantal-type cheese, researchers found that milk from cows eating more fresh grass produced cheese that was yellower, softer, more aromatic and richer in omega-3 fatty acids. When cows ate little or no fresh grass, the resulting cheeses were paler, firmer and milder. That does not mean France’s famous cheeses are about to disappear, but repeated droughts could force producers to rethink grazing periods, herd sizes, feed sourcing and even some long-standing production rules. For consumers, the changes may be subtle; for cheesemakers whose products are defined by terroir, they strike at the very identity the AOP system is meant to protect.

Would a change in flavor matter to you if it helped traditional cheesemakers adapt to a hotter climate?