France: French winter barley area for 2004 is currently forecast at 1.07 million ha by ONIC, up 30,000 ha. The condition of the crop largely followed the progress of winter wheat. However, the high temperatures in early June are expected to have more of an impact on yield than for wheat. This is because the winter barley crop was more advanced in the yield building stage. Strategie Grains still expect yield to recover on last year’s low level, and production to be up 1.3 million tonnes to 7.1 million tonnes.

Spring barley area for 2004 is currently forecast at 0.58M ha by ONIC, down 140,000 ha on last season. Planting conditions were good, but with high winter plantings and no winterkill spring plantings returned to a more normal, lower level. Spring barley was generally not seen as being advanced enough to have suffered from the high early June temperatures. Production is currently forecast by Strategie Grains to drop by 0.55 million tonnes to 3.4 million tonnes.

30 June, 2004