Bad wheat harvests in France: will this increase the price of baguettes?

Published 2024년 8월 8일

Tridge summary

Initial estimates predict that France's soft wheat harvest could reach only 25.1 million tonnes this year, marking the lowest yield since the 1980s, due to excessive rainfall and insufficient sunshine throughout the season. Despite these challenges, France's flour availability is not expected to be affected as it produces twice as much wheat as it consumes. However, millers are concerned about the potential increase in prices due to the poor harvest, which could lead to lower flour yields and unchanged fixed costs. The final impact on wheat and flour prices remains uncertain, with global factors such as strong exporter competition, weak demand, and better harvest forecasts in the United States currently keeping prices low.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

The harvests look bad in the fields of France. The soft wheat harvest, the main French production, could fall to just over 25 million tonnes this year, the lowest since the 1980s, according to initial estimates from Argus Media. Far from being a surprise: the excessive rains and lack of sunshine, from autumn to spring until the start of the harvest, left no illusions about the expected yields. What's missing flour? In terms of wheat, France produces twice as much as it consumes itself, which leaves little room for a shortage of flour despite a poor harvest. Even if millers "are not used to stocking up", it is not the availability that worries them, but rather "the evolution of prices", confirms Abdoulaye Traoré, head of economic studies at the National Association of French Flour Mills (ANMF), from BFM Business. The first harvest returns show “less full” grains due to bad weather. More concretely, this means "less flour produced for the same ton of wheat", explains Abdoulaye ...

Source: Bfmtv