PARIS: European milling wheat futures rose on Friday, scoring a second consecutive weekly rise, buoyed by strong demand and concerns about global supplies, notably in the western part of the European Union.
Benchmark September on the Paris-based milling wheat futures, closed 1.3% higher at 228.50 euros a tonne. It gained 1.7% this week after rising 0.1% the previous week.
Prices had previously decreased sharply as deep concerns somewhat waned about dry weather in Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter.
Activity has been low in the past days with US markets closed on Thursday and Friday morning for Independence Day.
Concerns about the soft wheat crop in France, the largest grower of the cereal in the European Union, were confirmed by several bodies on Friday.
Crop institute Arvalis and grain industry group Intercereales estimated that this year’s soft wheat harvest in France would show a yield at an eight-year low and 11% below the 10-year average because of particularly wet weather.
Meanwhile farm office FranceAgriMer said French soft wheat ratings had deteriorated last week, pegging 58% of crops in good or excellent condition by July 1, down from 60% the previous week and 81% a year earlier.
This week has seen signs of strong demand with purchases by Saudi Arabia and Tunisia. Across the Atlantic, Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures spiked on Friday amid an uptick in demand for US wheat due to a weaker dollar and the availability of desirable new-crop wheat, traders said. French soft wheat ratings deteriorated last week in the European Union’s biggest producer of the cereal while first cuttings of what is expected to be a very poor crop got under way, farm office FranceAgriMer said on Friday.
Ratings of French soft wheat, the largest cultivated crop in the country, showed 58% of crops in good or excellent condition by July 1, down from 60% the previous week and 81% a year earlier. Detailed ratings showed 5% of the crop was in “very poor” condition, up from 2% last week.
The rating was the lowest for this time of year since 2020, when French wheat crops were also affected by heavy rain during planting, data in a FranceAgriMer cereal report showed.
Wet weather and soggy fields in France since the autumn delayed plantings, hurt plant development and increased crop disease. French crop institute Arvalis and grain industry group Intercereales said on Friday that they expect this year’s French soft wheat harvest to show a yield 11% below the 10-year average and at an eight-year low owing to a particularly wet crop year.
Analysts and traders expect France, the European Union’s biggest wheat exporter, to harvest about 29-30 million metric tons of soft wheat, against 35 million tons last year.
Winter barley ratings fell even more sharply than wheat, with 56% of the crop in good/excellent condition, down from 63% a week earlier and 80% the previous year. The share of the crop in “very poor” condition also gained 3 percentage points to 5%.
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