Farm office FranceAgriMer expects this year's French soft wheat crop to rise 5.7 percent to 35.9 million tonnes from 34 million harvested in 2011, data published by the office on Friday showed. The forecast was the office's first official projection of the 2012 wheat crop in France, the European Union's top producer and exporter of the staple grain.
The wheat production forecast was based on an expected average yield of 7.4 tonnes a hectare, up 8 percent on 6.8 tonnes in 2011, which offset an estimated 2 percent fall in area to 4.9 million hectares from 5 million last year. The production forecast was above a preliminary outlook of 34.4 million tonnes disclosed by FranceAgriMer last month, and also higher than recent estimates by other forecasters.
Regular rain throughout spring has boosted the development of grain crops in France after severe winter frost damaged some plants and led to a large area to be resown in eastern France. The main concern in France is now about the quality rather than the quantity of the main wheat crop, with frequent showers threatening to downgrade some wheat to animal-feed quality.
In other harvest estimates, FranceAgriMer put the total barley crop, including both winter and spring barley, at 11.15 million tonnes, up 26.6 percent from 8.8 million tonnes in 2011. This was based on a yield of 6.7 tonnes a hectare, up from 5.7 tonnes last year, and an area of 1.7 million hectares, up from 1.5 million.
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