Heat and drought reduce French corn harvest

this season, agricultural statistics service Agreste says. That would be 7.5% down on 2024, due to a decline in the yield per hectare from 9.55 tons last year to 8.74 tons in the current season, partly compensated by a larger area. The lower yield comes after a summer of unfavourable weather conditions with long heatwaves and droughts. This year´s production is still almost 1% higher than the 5-year average, Agreste notes. As for fodder corn, Agreste calculates the production at 15 million tons, a decline of 13% compared to 2024 but almost 9% under the average over the previous 5 years too. While the area for this crop is almost stable, the yield per hectare declined from 13.5 tons to 12.3 tons. Although the agriculture service doesn´t give any specifics for this crop, it can be assumed that the hot weather played its part here too. Furthermore, farmers in France seem to have lost interest in sorghum, leading to a decrease of the area from 100,000 hectares in the previous season ...