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Adds detail on crop area, background
PARIS, Dec 13 (Reuters) – France’s farm ministry on Tuesday estimated that the area sown with soft wheat for the 2023 harvest will increase to 4.75 million hectares, 1.7% higher compared with the area harvested this year.
The expected level would also be 0.1% above the average of the previous five years, the ministry said in a report.
France is the European Union’s biggest grain producer and soft wheat is the country’s most produced cereal.
In its first sowing estimates for next year’s harvest, the ministry projected that the winter barley area would reach 1.30 million hectares, up 1% from 2022 and 3.9% above the five-year average.
The rapeseed area was pegged at 1.29 million hectares, up 4.9% on year and 6.5% above the five-year average.
The ministry’s projections covered winter varieties sown in late summer and autumn. Wheat and rapeseed are almost exclusively winter crops in France whereas barley production includes a large amount of spring-sown crop.
The increased sowing areas coupled with favourable early growing conditions suggest good production prospects for 2023, although weather from spring onwards tends to have more of a bearing on final yields.
In contrast, sowing of durum wheat was estimated down 4.4% on year at 233,000 hectares, or 12.5% below the five-year mean.
In revisions to 2022 harvest estimates, the ministry pegged drought-hit grain maize production, excluding crop grown for seeds, at 10.58 million tonnes, down from 10.74 million expected a month ago.
The revision, which reflected a cut to yields and a shift in area towards fodder maize, left production down 30.4% below last year’s bumper harvest and 22.6% below the five-year mean.
For sugar beet, also affected by drought this year, estimated output was reduced to 31.55 million tonnes from 31.94 million last month. The new estimate was 8.2% less than 2022 output and 14.6% under the five-year average.
The ministry kept almost unchanged its estimates of 2022 production of soft wheat, barley and rapeseed.
(Reporting by Gus Trompiz and Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Arun Koyyur)
((gus.trompiz@thomsonreuters.com; +33 1 49 49 52 18; Reuters Messaging: gus.trompiz.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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