The French are on top and the Germans lagging behind as the European Union’s wheat crop draws to a close in a season of contrasts for the world’s biggest growing region.
French farmers are celebrating a strong harvest, with good quality, thanks to hot June weather. Their counterparts from Spain to Germany and Romania suffered everything from frosts to heatwaves, and drought to downpours.
Total output for the 28-nation trading bloc will rise 3.8 percent to 141 million metric tons in the season that started in July, compared with an 11 percent slump the previous year, according to consultancy Strategie Grains. That’s still below the 151.9 million tons collected two years earlier.
“Contrast is a good word,” Strategie Grains President Andree Defois said in an interview. “The total effect is a higher crop, with good quality and better volume in France but some reduction in volume in central EU and quality problems in northern EU.”
Following are highlights from the bloc’s top five wheat growers. Harvests in the northern parts of Europe including the Baltic states and Denmark are still underway.
French Comeback
France began harvesting earlier than usual after a warm June sped up wheat development. The EU’s biggest grains producer expects a 34 percent jump in output this season after a dismal harvest last year, according to its Agriculture Ministry. Quality is very good, with the latest survey by crop office FranceAgriMer showing two-thirds of at least 12 percent protein content.
The recovery will help France regain the export-market share it lost with key buyers such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Soft-wheat shipments are forecast to jump by 58 percent to 17.8 million tons this season, according to French farm adviser Agritel.
Bloomberg