March 11, 2010

French soft wheat output unchanged, non-EU exports seen up

The official projection for France's soft wheat output for the current crop year is little changed as of the beginning of March from a month earlier, with stocks trending higher, data from the Agriculture Ministry Wednesday (March 10) show.

The Ministry's cereals office, FranceAgrimer, expects soft wheat production to total 36.54 million tonnes this year, little changed from the 36.52 million tonnes forecast last month.

The outlook for France's stocks of soft wheat is slightly higher at 3.99 million tonnes, compared with 3.92 million tonnes forecast in February.

French soft wheat export projections also rose slightly, especially to countries outside the EU, FranceAgrimer said. The projection for full-year, non-EU exports of French soft wheat rose to 8.8 million tonnes from 8.6 million tonnes projected a month ago, driven by strong demand from Morocco, Algeria and sub-Saharan Africa, agency officials said.

Remi Haquin, president of FranceAgrimer's grains council noted that the recent depreciation of the euro against the dollar has helped France regain some of its competitiveness.

Haquin also said the 2010 harvest should be of good quality and that so far no weather-related damage to the crop has been observed.

Prices for soft wheat and corn continued to fall in February and at the beginning of March, FranceAgrimer also said. Despite the dynamic in soft wheat exports, the abundance of available soft wheat has weighed on the price, it said.