A potential shortage of fertilisers is increasing risks for next year’s wheat harvest in France, the European Union’s biggest producer, after this year’s crop was relatively unscathed by drought.
This is reported by ProAgro Group with reference to Reuters.
This year’s French soft wheat harvest produced 33.60 million tonnes, down from 35.4 million in 2021 but close to the average volume of recent years.
The estimate was slightly below the farm ministry’s most recent harvest projection of 33.87 million tonnes issued in early August.
France’s worst drought on record is expected to inflict bigger losses on other crops like maize and potatoes.
For this year’s wheat crop, farmers generally managed to secure sufficient fertiliser for spring field work. But further disruption to European fertiliser output amid reduced Russian gas flows was creating uncertainty about 2023.
Growers were currently about 20 percentage points behind the level of fertiliser cover seen a year ago.
