Athletes competing in the Paris Olympics got a good taste of rains that are hampering crop production in France this year, as the Celine Dion-capped opening ceremony featured a sizeable number of umbrellas and ponchos.
Wheat: While the Canadian women’s soccer team was doing its best to overcome a six-point cheating-scandal deficit and get out of its group stage, French farmers with soggy fields were struggling to harvest their wheat crops.
French farm lobby group AGPB estimated the country’s soft wheat crop could be as small as 26 million tonnes this year, well short of last year’s 35-million-tonne yield. Spring conditions were the fourth wettest ever in France, with rainfall 45 per cent above the 10-year average.
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Floods and landslides damaged agricultural areas and sunshine through the growing season was well below average. Those rains never let up and the harvest is running well behind normal. Germany faced similar issues and the International Grains Council forecasts that total European wheat production will hit a four-year low of 128.7 million tonnes in 2024.
Barley: Barley production in France was thought to be even worse off than wheat. The French ministry of agriculture said it expects a 17 per cent decline in production on the year.
Rapeseed: Rapeseed production in France and Germany has also been hurt by adverse weather. That could create more room for Canadian canola exports in the 2024/25 marketing year. European rapeseed futures hit their highest levels of the past year in early July, before being pressured off those highs by losses in the North American soyoil and canola markets. More strength in European markets is expected, given the ongoing harvest delays.
