French soft wheat planting slowed in the week ending 26 October, but stayed well ahead of last year's pace, according to national agricultural and sea products agency FranceAgriMer.
French farmers advanced the wheat planting campaign by 11 percentage points (pp) in the reporting week, compared with 30pp in the previous week. This brought total planted areas to 68pc of projected total, well ahead of the 41pc planted a year ago. And wheat in 39pc of total areas had emerged as of 26 October, more than a week earlier than last year, when only 17pc of areas had emerged by the same date.
As for barley, 80pc of projected areas had been planted as of 26 October, compared with 62pc this time a year ago. Wheat in 58pc of total areas had begun emerging, representing a weekly progress of 28pp and 27pp ahead of last year.
And France's corn harvest slowed in the reporting week. Farmers harvested corn from a total of 82pc of projected areas, representing a weekly progress of 7pp, but more than double the 38pc of areas harvested this time a year ago.
