French soft wheat yield seen plunging to eight-year low

This year’s soft wheat harvest in France is expected to show a yield at an eight-year low and 11% below the 10-year average because of particularly wet weather, crop institute Arvalis and grain industry group Intercereales said on Friday.

The 2024 soft wheat yield in France, the European Union’s largest grower of the cereal, is seen at 6.4 metric tons per hectare (t/ha), down 13% from last year, they said in a joint statement.

Based on the agriculture ministry’s latest soft wheat area estimate for the 2024 harvest, at 4.40 million hectares (down 7.3% year on year), this would bring the harvest to 28.13 million tons, down from 35.1 million tons in 2023.
“The rains set in across all regions and seriously disrupted the conditions for sowing and then growing wheat, with various impacts depending on the soil type,” they said.

The average protein content – a key quality requirement -in this year’s soft wheat crop was pegged at 11.6%, stable versus 2023.

The crop year was marked by regular and continuous rains from sowing until harvest, amounting to +40% on average in France compared to the last 20 years, by strong pressure from weeds and diseases, and low sunshine in a large part of the territory

“We are paying a heavy price for the torrential rains of the last eight months. It is undeniably a year from which we will have difficulty recovering if nothing is done to strengthen our resilience at all levels,” Eric Thirouin, head of French wheat growers group AGPB, said after the data release.

Despite a low expected crop, Intercereales Chairman Jean-François Loiseau said hefty stocks from the previous season should allow the French cereal industry to supply both the French and foreign markets.

French soft wheat stocks in the 2023/24 season that ended on June 30 are estimated at a 19-year high, more than 50% above the previous year, due to a large harvest, lower demand from starch makers and competition from Black Sea origins within the EU.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide, Editing by Jason Neely, Anil D’Silva and David Goodman)