France sets to export 11 million tonnes of wheat

France is set to export a record 11 million tonnes of wheat onto the world market this season and could ship even more as it soaks up demand created by an export ban in drought-ravaged Russia, France's farm office said. French and US wheat exports have both soared since last month after Russia's withdrawal from the world market and because of a lack of bread-quality wheat from a rain-blighted harvest in Germany.
"The French wheat balance this year is based on the idea that there is room (on the world market) for 15 million tonnes of French wheat," Xavier Rousselin, head of FranceAgriMer's grains division, told Reuters in an interview prior to the publication of the office's 2010/11 forecasts on Wednesday.
FranceAgriMer's estimate for 11 million tonnes of wheat exports outside the 27-member bloc, compared with a previous record of almost 10 million tonnes last season, data released on Wednesday showed. The worst drought in a century in Russia is expected to slash grain output by about a third year-on-year in what was the world's No 3 exporter and has prompted the country to suspend exports from mid-August. Russian authorities now expect the ban to run until late 2011.
(For a factbox on the weather impact on major producers' crops:) The main state grain buyer in Egypt, the world's top wheat importer, has bought 780,000 tonnes of French wheat, but no German wheat, since Russia announced the ban. Rousselin said France, by far the EU's top wheat producer, could ship even more to meet demand for business lost by Russia and Germany, its main European competitor.
To sustain this surge in exports amid a fall in French wheat production this year, France should import its highest volume of wheat in more than 60 years, the office said, pegging 2010/2011 imports at 1.2 million tonnes, up from 491,000 in 2009/10. "We have never seen such high (import) levels since the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy," Michel Ferret, head of markets at FranceAgriMer, said in reference to the EU's single farm policy.
(For a detailed table of FranceAgriMer's supply-and-demand estimates for wheat:) Industrial users such as animal-feed makers and biofuel producers are expected turn to cheaper feed-grade wheat from other EU countries, while pricier French milling-quality wheat goes abroad.