January 14, 2010

French soft wheat outlook unchanged for 2010

The official projection for France's soft wheat output in the current crop year was unchanged at the start of January from the outlook a month earlier.

According to the Agriculture Ministry data, the country's soft wheat output is still expected to total 36.5 million tonnes this year.

France's inventories of soft wheat at January 10 rose strongly to a provisional 4.05 million tonnes, up from 3.54 million tonnes the previous month and up from 3.1 million tonnes at the same time last year. Lower exports have led to more stockpiling of soft wheat in France, the ministry said.

However, the ministry lowered its forecast for soft wheat exports by 95,000 tonnes from the December outlook to 6.93 million tonnes for sales into European Union countries, and by 150,000 tonnes to 8.5 million tonnes for deliveries to countries elsewhere.

France is Europe's largest producer of wheat, with soft wheat accounting for the bulk of that output.

The ministry said France has faced stiff competition on the EU market from Germany, Spain and the UK, while in other markets, producers Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are combining with the euro's unfavourable strength against the dollar to weigh on export sales.

The ministry said that, at this time, forecasting the 2010 harvest is difficult and open to uncertainty. It said a clearer picture will be obtained in March.