Recent heavy rains could prevent some wheat from being sown in France and Britain after some rapeseed area was lost in the two major European crop producers, adding further uncertainty to the global supply outlook, analysts said. Germany, however, has seen favourable sowing conditions for both crops, with rapeseed notably expected to see a jump in area after a difficult sowing campaign a year ago.
The rain-delayed grain sowing in France and Britain adds further pressure on the global supply network following adverse weather in leading producers from the United States to Australia. In France, the EU's top grain producer and exporter, a very wet October has hampered sowing of winter wheat and barley, with talk of some farmers abandoning plans to sow wheat.
"The feedback we've had is that in a zone around the Loire estuary (in western France), people have given up on some wheat sowings," Paul Gaffet of grains consultancy Offre & Demande Agricole said. Average rainfall in France last month was 20 percent above normal levels and the north-west of the country was among those regions that saw precipitation between 50 and 100 percent above average, weather forecaster Meteo France said.
Analysts had initially expected France's soft wheat area to recover hectares lost during severe frost last winter and match, or slightly exceed, the 5 million hectares sown a year ago. It was too early to quantify any losses due to wet weather and in northerly regions farmers were also used to sowing wheat late following the sugar beet harvest, Gaffet said. Sowing has accelerated since late October and, as of Monday, 80 percent of winter wheat and 93 percent of winter barley had been sown, according to farm office FranceAgriMer.
Recent rain has helped rapeseed plants that endured dry conditions during the late-summer sowing campaign but the moisture was too late to prevent some area being lost. Analysts had initially anticipated a rise in France's rapeseed area on the back of high market prices, but ODA said its follow-up survey on emerged crops suggested an area fall. "In the Centre region, rapeseed spent a month in the ground without being able to emerge because there wasn't enough moisture," Gaffet said.
The situation was more difficult in Britain where farmers have been grappling with persistent rain since the summer that already spoiled the wheat harvest and has since disrupted sowing of both rapeseed and wheat. The winter wheat area looks set to fall, analyst Jack Watts of the Home-Grown Cereals Authority said.