French Wheat Crop Seen Higher
This season's French soft wheat crop is now seen slightly higher than last year's production of 37 MMT, say the French Ministry.
They now peg output at 37.2 MMT, citing near record yields, despite earlier concerns that July rains might have harmed the crop.
Quality is also said to be largely very good this year.
November Paris milling wheat set a fresh contract low of EUR122.75/tonne today, that's EUR88.45/tonne down in the last twelve months.
ONIGC Up's French Corn Crop 1.1MMT
ONIGC has upped its 2008 French corn crop estimate by 1.1mmt to 15.4mmt, a 7% increase on 2007.
The group left its 2008 French wheat production estimate unchanged at 37.4mmt, 22% up on 2007.
Soft wheat exports within the EU-27 are expected to be 7.1mmt, and exports to non-EU27 countries will rise to 9mmt, it added.
The figure for exports outside the EU-27 is substantially higher than the 4.9mmt exported during 2007-08, and reflects the weaker euro helping competitiveness, and there are also some quality issues with wheat from the Ukraine, it says.
Certainly Ukraine may have had a huge harvest in 2008, but only 11% of the crop is said to be of bread-making standard.
French Grain Sales Well Ahead Of Last Year
ONIGC reports that French farmers sold 27.8 mln t of grain from July to September 2008, the first three months of marketing year 2008/09. This is much above the 24.1 mln t sold in the same period of last year. The total includes 18.0 (16.0) mln t of soft wheat (excl. durum), 1.0 (1.2) mln t of durum, 7.3 (5.8) mln t of barley and 763,000 (670,000) t of corn.
French Grain Crop Revised Up 16.6% On Year
The French 08/09 grain crop is now seen 16.6% higher than 07/08 at 69.3MMT according to the French Ministry. This is up 400,000MT on it's last estimate made in July.
Soft wheat production is seen up more than 20% on 07/08 to 37.1MMT and its barley crop up 27% to 12MMT.
The 2008/09 corn crop is seen at 14.85MMT, up 2.2% on 07/08.
French Wheat Crop Up 20 Pct, Barley Up 27 pct
French 2008-09 cereal production is seen 16% up on the year at 68.9 million metric tons, according to the French Ministry.
French wheat production was forecast at 37.0 million tons, up from the previous forecast of 36.6 million tons and 20.2% up on last season.
France's barley output is now forecast at 12.0 million tons, a 26.7% increase from 2007-08.
Corn production was pegged at 14.6 million tons little changed from 2007-08.
French farmers struggling with old crop wheat stocks
In a report Friday, BNP Paribas said French farmers are struggling with old-crop wheat stocks after hoarding supplies in hopes of higher prices and demand from North Africa.
