French Wheat Crop to Slide Below 35 Million Tons, Adviser Says

France’s soft-wheat harvest will drop below 35 million metric tons, the smallest crop in at least four years, as a drought in the country devastates yields, farm adviser Offre et Demande Agricole said.

Production will drop below last year’s 35.6 million tons, even as farmers planted the most soft wheat in three years, Alexandre Marie, a wheat analyst at Bourges, France-based Offre et Demande, said via telephone late yesterday.

“It’s already clear we have irreversible damage due to the drought,” Marie said. “We’ll have a catastrophe.”

Soils in France’s northern half, which grows 80 percent of the country’s wheat, were the driest in half a century at the end of April, the Environment Ministry said yesterday. France’s wheat crop, the European Union’s largest, is in a “danger zone” because of the drought, the national crops office said May 11.

Soft-wheat planting in France for harvesting this year climbed 2 percent to 5.02 million hectares (12.4 million acres), crops office FranceAgriMer estimates.

A lack of rain since the start of the year means nitrogen fertilizer hasn’t been washed into the soil, resulting in “very bad” absorption of the nutrient by wheat plants, according to Marie. French deliveries of nitrogen fertilizer from July to February rose 18 percent to 1.61 million tons, France’s fertilizer-industry association said last week.

Dry April

France just had its second-hottest April since 1900 and one of the driest since 1953, according to the Agriculture Ministry. The heat and lack of rain mean wheat crops are now about three weeks ahead of normal development, Marie said.

“What is certain is that there are people who will receive harvest insurance because of the drought,” the analyst said.

Marie said some French farmers with mixed production of livestock and grains have started cutting their immature grain for use as silage, green fodder that’s stored in silos or stacks foranimal feed.

French livestock farmers face a shortage of forage for their animals as drought threatens to reduce production of straw and grass, farm lobby FNSEA said last week.

“There are already livestock breeders that will use wheat as silage,” Marie said. “The farmers are saying, ‘I won’t go to the end because I could lose my wheat crop, when I need to feed my livestock now.’”

(Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-17/french-wheat-crop-to-slide-below-35-million-tons-adviser-says.html)