EU: According to analysts’ estimations, crop forecasts in the EU are good. Eastern France and parts of Germany complained about dryness, but there have been enough rainfalls recently to alleviate any fear of a real drought. Of course, May and June are still critical months for plant development. The French Ministry estimates spring barley acres at 574,000 ha against earlier industry estimates of only 500,000 ha. Therefore crop estimates for all barley in the old EU now range from 48.4 to 49 million tonnes, 2.5 million tonnes more than last year. Spring barley, however, is anticipated 1.1 to 1.7 million tonnes less. Coceral forecasts a barley crop of 8.25 million tonnes in the 10 new countries, of which 5 million tonnes spring barley.

01 June, 2004