French farmers have made little progress in sowing spring barley last week despite the onset of drier weather. This was shown by data from FranceAgriMer. As of April 16, spring barley was sown on 40% of the planned areas. This is a 6% advance on the previous week. Two weeks ago, the sowing progress was just 2%. In the past year, spring barley had already been sown on 97% of the planned areas at the same time. A wet end of winter, with parts of northern France experiencing record rainfall in February, flooded some fields that were still far too wet after the pouring autumn rain. Some farmers are considering switching to spring crops such as sunflowers and corn later sown.
The condition of common wheat was stable during the week until March 16. 63% of the plants were rated good or excellent, according to FranceAgriMer. The rating was well below 85% in the same week last year and the lowest in at least four years. The proportion of stocks of winter barley fell from 63% the previous week to 62% compared to 81% at the same time last year.
Source
HANSA Terminhandel
