Haricot Tarbais
This flat bean grows in soil that has no clay and can reach up to two cm in size. The pulp is low in starch and thus easy to cook. Tradition holds that in the 17th century the Bishop of Tarbes introduced the cultivation of this variety, at the same time that corn came to the region; in fact, the corn is used as support for these beans.
At the end of the 19th century production of this bean covered about 18,500 hectares of land and it was used for local consumption and sold in the market. However, the introduction of a hybrid variety of corn seriously threatened the crop which declined considerably after the First World War. Furthermore, it is not possible to use machinery for the harvest and as such the cultivation requires intense manual labor. At the end of the 20th century the bean was grown on only about 55 hectares of land; this is why a small group of farmers tried to improve the fortune of this variety by increasing their cultivations. In 2000 the group acquired IGP certification (Protected Geographical Indication). In the 2010s there were about 100 producers cultivating the Tarbes White bean on 200 hectares of land, and the annual production is about 140 tons.
Back to the archive >À la fin du XIXème siècle, la production, destinée aux consommateurs locaux et à la vente sur les marchés, s’étalait sur environ 18 500 hectares. Puis l’introduction d’une variété hybride de maïs commence à menacer cette culture qui décline fortement après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’impossibilité de faire une récolte mécanique nécessite également un travail manuel fastidieux. À la fin des années 1900, les plantations de haricots tarbais ne représentent plus que 55 hectares. Un petit groupe d’agriculteurs cherche alors à sauver cette variété en augmentant leur production.
En 2000, le haricot tarbais obtient l’IGP. Aujourd’hui, il est cultivé par environ 100 producteurs sur 200 hectares, pour une production annuelle d’environ 140 tonnes.
