Cereals in Europe badly need rain

Heavy rains are needed in the coming weeks after a severe drought to keep Europe at a fairly good yield level for the 2022 crop.

Higher temperatures would have accelerated the development of the runway, as well as the consequences of drought. Yield prospects for winter crops have already had to be slightly reduced compared to the previous month, but they are still above the five-year average.

This is the report of the MARS (Agricultural Resources Monitoring) Bulletin of the European Commission Scientific Service (JRC) on the weather and state of agricultural crops in Europe last month.

From April to May, agro-meteorologists have identified an apparent lack of precipitation in important growing regions in France, the Benelux, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey and Ukraine. In contrast, the previous problem of children in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy has seen a slight relaxation in the past month.

In the Maghreb countries of North Africa, previously noted with concern and heavily dependent on imports, conditions have improved in Algeria and Tunisia, but the outlook for Morocco remains negative.

This means that the forecast for yield per hectare of grain has fallen 0.9% month-on-month to 1.6% more than the average of the past five years. The decrease compared to the April report is 1.0% in particular for soft wheat (+0.9% on the five-year average) which is 2.5% lower than in 2021. Spring barley also did not sprout well, forecasts are bleak by 3 in April .0% (+ 1.2% over the five-year average) and means 0.8% less than the previous year.

Winter barley, rye, triticale and rapeseed also show slight deterioration in monthly periods, but yields are still higher than in the past five years. On the other hand, things look a little better for hard corn, corn, potatoes, sugar beets, and sunflowers.