French Crop Areas Smaller than Thought

PARIS - May 15/02 - STAT -- Seeded area estimates released by the Office National Interprofessionnel des Céréales (ONIC) paint a slightly different picture of this year's crop production prospects in the country than seeded area and production estimates released last month by the European organization COCERAL.

The most significant change is a downward revision in seeded area for all major crops grown in France. This dropped estimated plantings from initial projections of 12,136,678 hectares to 11,987,758. Even so, total area is up over last year's 11.87 million hectares, though behind plantings between 1997 and 2000.

Most of the decrease was accounted by smaller barley and corn areas. Winter barley area is now pegged at 1.605 million acres and corn at 1.787 million, versus initial estimates of a 1.71 million hectare barley crop and 1.85 million hectares of corn in France.

These changes will drop seeded area of these crops behind last year's levels. Winter barley is down 6.1% and corn plantings are 5.4% lower than last year. By contrast, soft wheat area is up 10.8% at 4.96 million hectares.

The increase in soft wheat area opens the door to a major rebound in production from last year's 30.149 million metric tons (MT) harvest to almost 37.3 million MT this year. Durum wheat output is also expected to increase, advancing almost 200,000 MT to 1.48 million.

Despite the reductions in coarse grain area, France continues to look for barley output to inch upward to around 10.32 million MT, while corn rises a half million tons to 16.5 million. Among feed grains garnering the most attention in world markets, oat production is expected to slip from 459,875 MT to 433,264 on a 4.7% drop in plantings to 104,150 hectares.

                        France Crop Production Summary
                            (hectares, metric tons)
Area (ha)                   1998       1999       2000       2001       2002
Soft Wheat             4,939,000  4,797,000  4,938,300  4,475,950  4,960,000
Durum Wheat              296,000    327,000    333,875    304,000    305,245
Barley                 1,631,000  1,534,000  1,560,700  1,709,340  1,605,000
Spring Barley            457,000    479,000    475,000    610,000    550,000
Corn                   1,799,000  1,737,000  1,795,680  1,889,000  1,787,000
Rye                       46,000     41,000     35,550     28,845     29,000
Oats                     139,000    122,000    106,030    109,310    104,150
Sorghum                   65,000     53,000     60,610     66,000     67,000
Triticale                233,000    234,000    296,000    303,000    309,363
Rapeseed               1,145,000  1,369,000  1,225,000  1,095,000  1,060,000
Sunflower                782,000    799,000    710,000    695,000    660,000
Soybean                  111,000    102,000     80,000    120,000    109,000
Feed Pea                 606,000    477,000    436,000    429,000    395,000
Feed Bean                 13,000     13,000     18,000     40,000     47,000
Total                 12,262,000 12,084,000 12,070,745 11,874,445 11,987,758
Production (MT)             1998       1999       2000       2001       2002
Soft Wheat            38,269,300 35,690,400 35,928,636 30,149,000 37,294,955
Durum Wheat            1,545,000  1,542,000  1,632,000  1,288,000  1,482,164
Barley                10,591,000  9,539,000  9,950,000  9,936,000 10,322,246
Spring Barley          2,669,000  2,801,000  2,684,000  3,068,000  2,849,000
Corn                  15,204,000 15,374,000 16,227,000 16,091,000 16,505,379
Rye                      216,000    186,000    161,000    121,750    136,010
Oats                     658,000    551,000    503,000    459,875    433,264
Sorghum                  364,000    328,000    400,000    400,100    397,980
Triticale              1,229,000  1,184,000  1,449,000  1,374,000  1,532,729
Rapeseed               3,734,000  4,468,000  3,569,000  2,911,000  3,145,806
Sunflower              1,713,000  1,868,000  1,813,000  1,633,000  1,591,307
Soybean                  284,000    271,000    215,000    313,000    288,381
Feed Pea               3,227,000  2,622,000  1,940,000  1,772,000  1,864,329
Feed Bean                 54,000     57,000     76,500    152,000    194,000
Total                 79,757,300 76,481,400 76,548,136 69,668,725 78,037,551
Yield (kg)                  1998       1999       2000       2001       2002
Soft Wheat                 7,748      7,440      7,276      6,736      7,519
Durum Wheat                5,220      4,716      4,888      4,237      4,856
Barley                     6,494      6,218      6,375      5,813      6,431
Spring Barley              5,840      5,848      5,651      5,030      5,180
Corn                       8,451      8,851      9,037      8,518      9,236
Rye                        4,696      4,537      4,529      4,221      4,690
Oats                       4,734      4,516      4,744      4,207      4,160
Sorghum                    5,600      6,189      6,600      6,062      5,940
Triticale                  5,275      5,060      4,895      4,535      4,954
Rapeseed                   3,261      3,264      2,913      2,658      2,968
Sunflower                  2,191      2,338      2,554      2,350      2,411
Soybean                    2,559      2,657      2,688      2,608      2,646
Feed Pea                   5,325      5,497      4,450      4,131      4,720
Feed Bean                  4,154      4,385      4,250      3,800      4,128
Europe
Created May 15, 2002