A drought in much of west Europe now looks certain to cut wheat harvest yields this summer but rain this week gave last-minute relief to German crops, analysts and traders said on Tuesday. Parts of central Europe had less than 40 percent of their long-term average rainfall from February to April, said the Global Precipitation Climatology Centre.
Europe's drought looks set to continue with little relief for parched farmland until June at the earliest, forecasters say. Crop watchers in top producers France, Germany and Britain say bumper wheat yields have been stopped by the drought and harvest forecasts are being scaled back.
The precise scale of damage is still unclear and some crops could save a recovery if enough rain falls. But drought in the EU's No 1 wheat producer France has become so severe that there can be no recovery from crop losses and this year's wheat output is likely to fall by over 5 percent, an expert said. It will no longer be possible to catch up on yields on a national scale after long stress from a lack of water in past weeks, said Jean-Charles Deswartes of French grains technical institute Arvalis.
No substantial rainfall is expected in France in the next two weeks, and a forecaster said temperatures were set to rise sharply in the coming week, boosting groundwater evaporation. Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said on Monday that France was already in "a situation of crisis" and limits on water consumption had been imposed in 28 of its 96 administrative regions.
In germany, the EU's second largest wheat producer, parched north and north-east German grain plants at last received appreciable volumes of rain late on Monday and early on Tuesday. Rain in the north is forecast to continue on Wednesday. The north and north-east German wheat areas, key for exports, have been especially dry since early April. Central and south German wheat regions are generally in a better state.
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