PARIS: French farmers are expected to cut back on maize sowing and devote more area to sunflower seeds in response to rising fertiliser costs, the country’s farm ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry forecast that farmers will plant 1.37 million hectares (mln ha) of grain maize, excluding crop grown for seeds, for the 2022 harvest, down 6.1% from last year. “This first estimate of maize area reflects choices made by farmers for spring sowing in a context of surging prices for fertiliser and gas,” the ministry’s statistics service said in a note.
In contrast, the ministry forecast that the sunflower seed area reach 758,000 ha, up 8.5% compared with 2021, noting the oilseed crop required less nitrogen fertiliser than maize and was also more resistant to drought. Farmers in France and other crop producing countries have been expected to curb planting of maize to save on fertiliser and avoid post-harvest drying costs. France, the European Union’s biggest grain producing state, is also facing worsening drought conditions, prompting the farm ministry to warn on Monday that there would be a negative impact on yields of winter cereals like wheat.
For soft wheat, France’s main cereal crop, the ministry increased slightly its 2022 area estimate to 4.80 mln ha from 4.79 mln ha last month, but this would be 3.8% below last year’s level and slightly under the average of the past five years. For sugar beet, the estimated area was increased slightly 399,000 ha from 396,000 ha in April, approaching last year’s level of 402,000 ha but nearly 11% below the five-year mean.
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