Wheat crop in France threatened by lack of rain

France’s wheat crop, Europe’s largest, is in a “danger zone” as drought reduces the potential harvest, the country’s crops office FranceAgriMer said yesterday.

The crop has entered a “critical stage,” and weather in the next two weeks will be decisive for yields, Christian Vanier, FranceAgriMer’s industry coordinator for cereals, said in a presentation in Montreuil-sous-Bois, near Paris, reported Bloomberg.

“We won’t have a very good year,” Vanier said, adding it will be an average year. “There is a real deterioration of the crop conditions.”

France just had its second-hottest April since 1900 and one of the driest since 1953, according to the Agriculture Ministry. Wheat production will fall from last year because of the drought, Michel Portier, general director of Paris-based farm adviser Agritel, said in an interview on May 6.

The country produced 35.6 million metric tons of soft wheat last year and 2.53 million tons of durum wheat, ranking France as the world’s fifth-largest wheat grower after China, India, the U.S. and Russia. Five-year average soft-wheat production was 34.6 million tons.