French milling wheat production rebounds 36% to 37.5 million mt

French milling wheat production for the 2017/18 marketing year is forecast to rise 36.1% year-on-year to 37.51 million mt, data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Agrifood, and Forestry showed Tuesday.

High yields – up 37% year-on-year – have seen the crop successfully rebound from last year’s underwhelming production, as well as advancing 5.2% on the five-year average. The 2017/18 production figure has almost matched 2014’s bumper crop and is set to be the third-highest on record over the past 20 years.

With regards to quality, the ministry pointed to both a high protein content and specific weight, noting that while they have seen regional disparities due to heavy rainfall towards the end of the development cycle, this has not been enough to cause significant impact to the size of the crop.

The ministry also raised concerns over the size of the global crop this year, singling out in particular the size of both Russia and Ukraine’s bumper wheat harvests.

Other cereals have also performed well from an agricultural perspective, with barley 17.1% higher on the year and 7.4% higher on the five-year average at 12.224 million mt. Average yields were up 16.5% on year.

Corn, while able to gain on last year’s underwhelming volumes as production increased 11.6% to 13.322 million mt, remained down 10.5% on the five-year average.