By Sybille de La Hamaide
PARIS (Reuters) -Jean Lefevre like many French farmers has just endured one of the worst wheat harvests in decades as rain barely stopped from the moment he started sowing his grain last October to when he started gathering the crop last month.
France, the European Union’s largest grain producer, has experienced particularly wet weather in the past year, including a month of continuous rain in October-November, the wettest spring ever and violent storms last month.
The rainy weather and soggy fields delayed sowings and hurt crop development, so much so that the farm ministry estimates France will harvest its worst wheat crop since the 1980s, down 25% from last year. Other cereals like winter barley have also been badly hit.
“Since October we have had our feet in the water. We have sown in very complicated conditions, and today we are still harvesting in wet soil again. I have neighbours who got stuck with their harvesters or with their trailers,” said Lefevre, 43, who farms in the Oise region of northern France.
Wheat is the most widely grown cereal in France, with about half of it exported either within or outside the EU, helping the country’s trade balance, even if France has faced stiff competition from Black Sea countries in recent years.
Being a player on the world market, however, exposes France to swings in global prices. While farmers might have hoped to see local prices rise in the face of tight supplies, they actually remained pressured by a global grain glut linked to hefty crops in major producers such as competitor Russia.
ALL AT ONCE
Rising production costs since the pandemic – including for equipment, fertilizers and renting land – have been another problem, which together with low crop volumes and depressed prices present a triple whammy for farmers.
“It’s all at once, catastrophic crops, low prices and costs that have never been as high,” said Laurent Pollet, who grows crops on 200 hectares of land in the Oise region.
Most farmers expressed frustration that the crisis comes as France only has a caretaker government since parliamentary elections last month called by President Emmanuel Macron.
“When both crops and prices are bad, results are catastrophic. Some people will need psychological help and most of us will need financial support,” Lefevre said.
“But without a government, it’s very complicated. “We were already talking to a wall, now we are talking to the wind.”
The farm ministry said in a statement on Monday it would support grain growers through early payment of annual EU subsidies, increased compensation under a new agricultural insurance scheme, and relief on land tax.
Lefevre joined thousands of farmers who protested earlier this year, blocking major highways around Paris, saying they were not paid enough and were choked by excessive regulation on environmental protection.
Wheat growers say the grain crisis is unlikely to trigger new protests, mainly because they don’t have time.
“We are harvesting, rapeseed sowing starts in 10 days, then we move on to wheat sowing, we have the beet harvest from mid-September, we are in a tunnel until Nov. 15. So going back to the street is not an objective,” said Emeric Duchesne, another grain grower in the Oise.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Susan Fenton and David Goodman)
