(Bloomberg) -- Farmers in northern France face “catastrophic” weather, with very little rain forecast for the next two weeks and the potential for yields “sharply down,” Luc Morin, who runs crop-weather analyst Visio-Crop, said in a tweet on Sunday.
Wheat in France is suffering from drought after entering spring time with very low levels of biomass, and satellite analysis shows plant health is reduced compared to last year, according to Morin.
French soft-wheat conditions deteriorated in the week through to April 13, with just 61% of the crop in good or very good conditions, down 1 point from the previous week, the worst shape for this time in at least nine years, crop office FranceAgriMer reported on Friday. Agricultural soils in France, the European Union’s biggest grower of wheat and barley, are now the driest in at least five years across more than half the country, according to forecaster Meteo-France.
Saint-Dizier, a rural town east of Paris, hasn’t had measurable rainfall in 36 days, the longest drought in records going back to 1953, Meteo-France meteorologist Francois Jobard said in a tweet.
Other grain producers in Europe also face drought concerns, with water reserves in Romania at risk levels across the entire country, according to Morin. In Ukraine, water reserves are at their lowest in six years, Morin’s data show.
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