France expects its rapeseed production to drop sharply this year after adverse weather throughout the growing season hit yield prospects and outweighed an increase in crop area, the farm ministry said on Tuesday. Other European Union countries, including Germany, have also faced poor conditions for rapeseed, the bloc's most commonly grown oilseed, leading forecasters to cut expectations for this summer's EU harvest.
In its first production estimates for the 2018 harvest in France, the EU's biggest grain producer, the ministry projected the winter rapeseed crop at 4.9 million tonnes, down 9.1 pct from last year and 3.4 percent below the average for the past five years. The national yield was seen falling 14.4 percent to 3.27 tonnes per hectare (t/ha), also below a five-year mean of 3.43 t/ha. "Weather conditions
have been particularly unfavourable for rapeseed during the current season," the ministry said in a crop report. "All regions are affected by the drop in yields and production." Heavy rain intensified parasite pressure, while a lack of spring sunshine after the flowering stage hampered the formation of pods that carry oilseeds, it said. The expected decline in yields offset a 6.2 percent increase in the winter rapeseed area and the ministry warned that it could make a downward revision to its area estimate, given reports of rapeseed fields being dug up and replaced with other crops.
Rapeseed production in France is almost entirely winter crop, with the ministry estimating that farmers sowed 1.49 million hectares of winter crop, against only 2,000 hectares of spring rapeseed. The ministry also gave a first estimate of 2018 winter barley production, putting the crop at 9.1 million tonnes, virtually unchanged from 2017 and nearly 5 percent above the five-year average. The national yield was projected to rise by 3 percent to 6.69 t/ha, while the crop area was seen falling by about 3 percent to 1.36 million hectares.
Barley production in France also includes a significant amount of spring-sown crop. The ministry estimates the spring barley area at 500,000 hectares, down 1.4 percent year on year. Area estimates for soft wheat, grain maize and sugar beet were left unchanged from the ministry's previous report in May. Continuing heavy rain at the start of June could increase disease pressure and hamper crop development, the ministry added.
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