According to the French Ministry of Agriculture, the area sown under winter cereals in the country may decrease sharply this year after heavy rains prevented field work, reports Nasdaq .
Thus, in its first estimates of the sown area for next year’s harvest, the ministry predicted that the sown area under winter soft wheat could amount to 4.49 million hectares, which is 5.1% below last year’s level and is the minimum indicator for the last four years.
In addition, the sown area of winter barley is forecast at the level of 1.31 million hectares, which is 4% lower than last year, but 3.1% higher than the average figure for the last five years, durum wheat – 205 thousand hectares (-10, 5%; -15.7% respectively).
At the same time, the ministry does not rule out that due to heavy rains, which have been recorded throughout the country since mid-October and prevent sowing, sowing may be partially postponed to the spring of next year.
At the same time, the area sown under winter rape this year will increase by 0.5% to 1.35 million hectares.