PARIS: Farm office FranceAgriMer on Wednesday lowered its forecast of French soft wheat exports outside the European Union for the second month in a row, contributing to a further increase in expected stocks in the EU’s biggest wheat producer.
In monthly supply and demand data for major cereal crops, the office cut its estimate of soft wheat shipments outside the 27-member EU in the 2021/22 season to 9.2 million tonnes from 9.4 million estimated in November.
The reduced forecast was still 24% above the volume last season, when a poor French harvest slashed the export surplus.
FranceAgriMer had already lowered the non-EU export outlook in November, citing a loss of competitiveness for French wheat after a rally to record prices.
The office kept unchanged its forecast of French soft wheat exports within the EU at 7.8 million tonnes, after reducing the outlook last month.
It increased its projection of French soft wheat stocks by the end of the 2021/22 season in June next year to 3.5 million tonnes from 3.2 million estimated last month.
Along with the reduced non-EU export projection, an increase to the expected volume of harvested crop to be put on the market contributed to the bigger soft wheat stocks, offsetting a slight upward revision to domestic demand.
FranceAgriMer kept unchanged its forecasts of barley and maize stocks at the end of 2021/22, at 1.4 million and 1.9 million tonnes, respectively.
The office’s maize update showed that an increase of more than 200,000 tonnes to harvest supply was offset by higher demand, including upward revisions of 100,000 tonnes each to projected domestic feed use and exports within the EU.
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