Europe endures a season to forget

With this season’s winter and spring crop harvest across the European Union largely concluded and the summer crop harvest now underway in the bloc’s southern growing regions, the total grain production expectations for the 2024/25 season have continued to decline as final harvested yields are gradually revealed. This reduction can primarily be attributed to adverse weather conditions, particularly record rainfall in late 2023 and then a wet harvest, which negatively impacted winter crop sowing and plant development across key producing countries such as France, Germany, the Baltic states, and Poland. Dry weather in the Black Sea region also took the shine off mid-season winter crop production optimism in the neighbouring states of Bulgaria and Romania. According to the European Commission’s latest production estimates released last Friday, total cereal production across this season’s winter, spring and summer cropping programs is projected at 260.9 million tonnes (Mt), down 3.3pc ...