French farmers will sow the same amount of grain maize in 2018 as they did last year, keeping the area well below the average of recent years as low prices curb interest, France's farm ministry said. In a crop report on Tuesday, the ministry estimated France's 2018 grain maize area, excluding crop grown for seeds, at 1.38 million hectares (mln ha), unchanged versus 2017 but 11.9 percent below the average of the previous five years.
"In 2018, area devoted to grain maize will not recover, remaining below the 1.5 million hectares level," the ministry said. "The weakness of maize prices is not encouraging growers to increase sowings." France's grain maize area, excluding seeds, has declined sharply from 1.76 million hectares in 2013, the ministry's data showed. The ministry trimmed slightly its estimate of the area sown with soft wheat - France's main cereal crop - to 4.95 million hectares from 4.98 million projected last month.
This was now down 0.2 pct compared with 2017, 1.9 percent below the five-year average and the lowest soft wheat area since 2013. The ministry also adjusted marginally its estimate of barley sowings. The total 2018 area was increased to 1.86 million hectares from 1.85 million last month, which was 2.6 percent below the 2017 level but 2.5 percent above the 5-year average. For sugar beet, the estimated 2018 area was left unchanged from last month at 483,000 hectares. This was down 0.7 pct from 2017, but 16.3 percent above the five-year average after farmers expanded area sharply last year before the scrapping of EU sugar quotas.
The ministry said it was maintaining its 2018 area view despite wet, cool weather in March that delayed the average planting date for sugar beet by three weeks, and falling sugar prices that did not appear to have discouraged growers. In oilseeds, the expected rapeseed area was also left unchanged, at 1.50 million hectares, up 6.3 percent from last year and 1.1 percent above the five-year average.
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