France is bracing for its worst soft wheat harvest in more than four decades due to relentless rainfall, according to Argus. Production is projected to plummet to 25.2 million tons in the 2024-25 season, a staggering 27 per cent decline from the five-year average. Persistent rain, combined with insufficient sunlight and cold temperatures, has created ideal conditions for crop diseases, decimating yields and quality across most of France's growing regions. This year's extreme weather patterns have wreaked havoc on European grain production, with excessive rainfall in northwestern Europe and drought and heatwaves affecting corn crops in the east. French farmers have appealed to the government for financial assistance in the face of this catastrophic harvest. "We have to go back to 1983 and its 24.5 million tons to find such a low harvest in France," said Gautier Le Molgat, director of Argus Media France. "The entire French cereal industry should suffer the consequences of this historic drop in production." Despite the dire outlook for France and a smaller Russian crop, wheat prices in Chicago remain near a four-year low due to ample US supplies. While Paris wheat prices surged to a one-year high in May amid frost and rain-reduced supplies, they have since trended downward. Attribution: Bloomberg
