PARIS: Consultancy Strategie Grains cuts its estimate for France's 2021 soft wheat harvest on Thursday after a crop tour showed lower than expected yields in the northeastern grain basket and said the overall quality of the harvest was also disappointing.

Strategie Grains now expects the soft wheat harvest at between 37 million and 37.5 million tonnes, down from nearly 38 million tonnes forecast last week.

France, the European Union's largest wheat producer and exporter, is in the early stage of harvesting its soft wheat crop and farmers had hoped results would confirm expectations of a bumper crop this year, recovering from a poor 2020 harvest.

The Strategie Grains estimate was in line with the French farm ministry, which last week pegged this year's soft wheat crop at 37.1 million tonnes.

The 2021 harvest would still be well above last year, when France harvested 29 million tonnes of soft wheat.

A crop tour last week showed poorer yields than initially expected in the north and north east, which host the largest wheat-producing regions, Strategie Grains crop analyst Vincent Braak told Reuters. This could be because of a cold snap earlier in the season, he said.

The consultancy has carried out two crop tours this season. The first, earlier this month, covered the centre of the country, where yields were expected to be very good, Braak said. "On quality, we expect a sharp drop in terms of Hagberg falling numbers and very heterogeneous specific weights," he said. The two criteria determine whether wheat is accepted for flour milling or livestock feed.