In a few days, the harvest will be completely finished in France. A few plots still have to be covered for combine harvesters in Hauts-de-France, Normandy and the Grand Est. In the regions south of the Seine, the harvests are over and are already showing a very bad year. According to the cereal growers, the 2020 harvest would be almost at the same level as that of 2016, one of the worst of the last thirty years: 30 million tonnes at most for common wheat, that which is used for the manufacture of bread.
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In Beauce, for example, yields are around 55 to 65 quintals per hectare, when they were 80 last year. In question: a rainy autumn which prevented a good plantation, a winter without frost which made proliferate aphids, then a very dry spring which thwarted the growth of the plant. On some plots, the farmers even gave up harvesting: the land was directly turned over.
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"Breathless" farmers
For the president of wheat producers, Eric Thirouin, some grain farmers will have trouble recovering. "It's only been 4 years," he laments. "Many had to borrow to try to get through this year 2016, and the loans were spread over 5 to 7 years. And there, you are at the end of 4 years, and you start again. There indeed, we have a cereal agriculture which is out of breath in many French regions, "adds the president of wheat producers.
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The lifeline for growers this year might be price, but price is determined globally. France is facing heavyweights like Russia, Ukraine and the United States, whose production levels are not yet known precisely.