France's farm ministry kept its estimate of the area sown with winter soft wheat for the 2015 harvest nearly unchanged on Tuesday at 5.13 million hectares from an initial estimate of 5.10 million in December. The estimate was 3.1 percent above the 2014 level.
The ministry left unchanged its estimate of winter barley sowings for this year's harvest at 1.3 million, up 4.6 percent versus 2014. Winter wheat accounts for almost all wheat sowings in France but barley production also includes a significant amount of spring-sown crop. The ministry pegged the French durum area at 310,000 hectares, up from 309,000 hectares in December and up 10.3 percent on 2014.