French arable crop office ONIGC said on Wednesday it expected France's soft wheat output in the 2007/08 season to be 35 million tonnes, up 5 percent on 2006/07, but said the final volume would depend on the weather. ONIGC said the weather in the coming two weeks would be decisive for the wheat crop and that recent rainfall could hurt yields if it lasted too long.
"This is a temporary level that could be revised in light of the weather," ONIGC Director General Bruno Hot told Reuters. In its first forecasts for the coming harvest, ONIGC put the soft wheat yield at 7.1 tonnes per hectare this season, against 7.0 tonnes in 2006/07. The area sown was estimated two percent higher than last year at 4.89 million hectares. ONIGC put the total grain crop, except maize and sorghum, at 49.84 million tonnes this season, up 3.3 percent from the one harvested in 2006.
Harvesting has started in many regions but progress has been slowed down by heavy showers in recent weeks. ONIGC put the soft wheat ending stock at 2.07 million tonnes, from a revised estimate of 2.57 million last season. Hot said that the fall was mainly due to a rise in demand from the biofuel sector (up 900,000 tonnes this season) and higher wheat purchases by feed makers (up 700,000 tonnes) due to the surge in barley prices.