France is set for a steep fall in soft wheat exports and stocks this season due to a rain-hit harvest in the European Union's top grain producer, farm office FranceAgriMer said.
French soft wheat exports outside the EU in the 2024/25 season that began on 1 July were pegged at 7.5 million metric tonnes, down 26% from 10.2 million in 2023/24, the office said in its first supply and demand outlook for the new season.
That would only be slightly offset by a 4% projected rise in soft wheat shipments inside the EU to 6.5 million tonnes.
End of season soft wheat stocks were projected to drop 22% to 3 million tonnes from a 19-year high of 3.83 million in 2023/24.
FranceAgriMer bases its outlook on the production estimates of the French agriculture ministry, which this week projected the soft wheat harvest would fall 15% to a four-year low of 29.65 million tonnes.
But forecasts were likely to see "substantial" downward revisions given latest indications that the cereal harvest will be worse than previously thought, Benoit Pietrement, head of FranceAgriMer's grain committee, told reporters.
Outlook
Harvest forecasts of market participants consulted by FranceAgriMer ranged from 27.1 million to 28.5 million tonnes, Maria Gras, a grain analyst at the office, added.
For barley, the office projected that French 2024/25 exports outside the EU would drop 22% to 3 million tonnes from 3.83 million last season, while stocks would shrink to 1.03 million tonnes from 1.40 million in 2023/24.
FranceAgriMer's panel of experts also pegged barley production below the 11.29 million tonnes forecast by the ministry, with a range of 10.3-10.7 million tonnes, Gras said.
Months of heavy rain have disrupted planting, hampered plant development and fuelled disease in French crop belts.
Growers were hoping for a sunny spell to give a late boost to wheat crops as harvesting gets under way and avoid quality loss on top of the expected fall in yields, Pietrement said.
"We feel like since October autumn never went away," he said.
For maize, which is harvested in autumn, FranceAgriMer did not give a 2024/25 outlook pending first official production forecasts from August.
For 2023/24, it left almost unchanged its 2023/24 stocks estimate at 2.23 million tonnes, nearly 35% higher than in 2022/23.
