There is currently a fair amount of speculation in the international market as to how much damage the winter crops in France have suffered due to the recent heavy rain and flooding. Market wires continue to chatter, even Paris wheat futures rallied nicely on Thursday, but only slightly on Friday.
So the million dollar question remains; how much damage has been done. There are not too many reports willing to take a stab at an actual number as yet. What we do know is that current crop rating are still reasonable high but lower week on week. Soft wheat was still pegged at about 81% good to excellent last week. Although this is 8% lower than this time last year. This raises an interesting point and comparison as wet weather was a real problem a couple of years ago.
Late May 2014 the French winter wheat crop was rated at 75% good to excellent by the middle of June 2014 it was back to 70% good to excellent. By the middle of July there was some real concerns starting to be voiced over the French crop. I should probably also note here that this year the French durum crop is currently only rated at 70% G/E.
We should see the latest condition report in the wires by Monday, I’ve tried to get it off the FranceAgriMer website but I can’t find it there, not being able to read French isn’t helping me much either.
The take home message is probably telling us that the market may take a little longer to react than what we would expect.