Wheat: French harvest at lowest level in 41 years, according to a firm

French harvest at lowest level in 41 years, according to a firmParis, FranceThe harvest of soft wheat, the most produced cereal in France, could fall this year due to excessive rains to the lowest level since 1983, to 25.17 million tonnes, according to estimates from the Argus Media firm published on Tuesday. If this forecast is confirmed, this would represent a drop of 27% compared to the average of the last five years, specifies the group, which questioned operators in the sector at the beginning of August, according to a representative sample of more than 80% of the total soft wheat surface area.This is "the consequence of repeated bad weather from sowing to harvesting," Argus Media analyzes in a press release.The heavy rains that have fallen since last autumn in many agricultural areas have, on the one hand, prevented the successful completion of sowing: the areas devoted to bread cereals have fallen by 10.5% over the year, according to the firm.Yields have also fallen, to 5.93 tonnes per hectar e, according to Argus Media estimates. That is a drop of 18.7% compared to the five-year average."Soft wheat yields below 60 quintals per hectare (6 tonnes, Editor's note) had disappeared since the end of the 1980s in France. But climatic hazards are taking us back. First with the very poor harvest of 2016 which recorded 53.74 quintals/hectare and today with that of 2024," commented the director of Argus Media France, Gautier Le Molgat, in the press release.Among the reasons for this low yield, the group puts forward "poor implantation, asphyxiation of the roots by excess water, high pressure from diseases and weeds, temperatures that are too low during the reproduction phase and also a lack of sunshine."The Ministry of Agriculture is due to publish estimates on Friday of cereal production in France, the European Union's leading producer and exporter of soft wheat.During a visit last week to a Beauce grain farm predicting a worse harvest than in 2016, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau indicated that t he government was ready to activate exceptional aid measures if the harvests turned out to be really bad.Several agricultural organizations have already called for emergency measures.Source: Burkina Information Agency