Reuters – Farmers in France, the European Union’s biggest crop producer, are expected to cut back on wheat and sugar sowing for this year’s harvest, but expand barley and rapeseed area, the country’s Farm Ministry said April 12.
The ministry pegged the 2022 area of soft wheat, France’s most grown cereal, at 4.79 million hectares (mln. ha), down 3.9 per cent from 2021 and 0.7 per cent below the past five-year average.
This comes after winter soft wheat sowings were revised up slightly to 4.77 mln. ha, from a previous estimate of 4.75 mln. ha in February that traders had considered rather low.
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For spring barley, the area was seen rising 4.1 per cent from last year, to 553,000 ha.
Estimated winter barley sowing was kept unchanged from February at 1.25 mln. ha, for an expected all-barley area of 1.81 mln. ha, up 4.3 per cent.
For rapeseed, the ministry estimated the 2022 area, including a marginal amount of spring crop, at 1.16 mln. ha, up 18.4 per cent from 2021, but still 6.7 per cent below the five-year average.
French crops have generally benefited from moderate weather since autumn, with wheat and barley recording high ratings in farm office FranceAgriMer’s weekly crop progress reports.
