France, the EU’s top wheat producing and exporting country, is being forced to buy foreign wheat from Lithuania and the UK among others, to mix with its own poor quality crop in order to meet contract quality requirements. A wet summer has damaged France’s usually high quality wheat crop and indications are that the country may have issues with retaining its market share for high quality milling wheat. According to records kept by Reuters, France has only had to import notable volumes of Lithuanian wheat in order to lift the quality of its shipments one time over the past 13 years – during the 2010/11 season. France has imported 27,500 tons from Lithuania this week compared to a total of 22,600 tons in 2010. The importation and mixing of wheat to raise quality indicates that France will likely have trouble meeting its export obligations to its traditional markets such as Algeria and Morocco and will aggressively sell its lower-quality feed wheat on the Asian and Arabian markets. The UK, which saw good quality levels in its wheat crop this season is seeing the situation as a chance to increase its market share to Algeria with the possibility of shipping a record 0.5 million tons to the country by the end of 2014. To read further:
To receive relevant news stories with summaries provided by GAI Research & Insight, subscribe to Global AgDevelopments, our free weekly enhanced eNews service