French wheat export forecast down 425,000 mt to 37 mil mt: FranceAgriMer

A testing global market and a slow start to the year has seen FranceAgriMer take 425,000 mt off its expectations of French wheat exports, according to its monthly update released Wednesday.

It knocked 500,000 mt of its overall production estimate for the 2017/18 marketing year. It takes the production forecast to 37.01 million mt, still up 34.3% on last year’s crop and 3.8% on the average production volume of the past five marketing years.

Expected exports were revised downward by 425,000 mt to 17.69 million mt, up 56% from last year’s disappointing total and still up 0.9% on the five-year average despite a challenging global market for wheat sellers.

An additional 535,000 mt of production was added to its corn forecast from last month’s report, 26.8% higher than last year’s total, but down 7.2% on the average volume seen over the last five years.

In a separate presentation released at the same time, FranceAgriMer explained how increased competition from Russia’s massive crop this year has weighed on France’s prospects on the international stage, while a stronger euro against the dollar has hampered matters further.