France sees soft wheat sowing rebounding after rain relents

France’s farm ministry on Tuesday estimated that planting of the country’s main wheat crop for the 2025 harvest will rebound sharply after drier November weather averted a repeat of rain-hit sowing a year earlier.

Farmers in France, the European Union’s biggest grain producer, are expected to sow 4.51 million hectares of winter soft wheat for next year, up 8.7% compared with the area harvested this year, the ministry said in a crop report.

Fewer showers and mild temperatures last month allowed growers to catch up on earlier rain delays that had threatened a similar setback to last autumn, when waterlogged conditions slashed planting and contributed to the smallest wheat harvest since the 1980s in 2024.

Tags: planting, France, wheat, crop, area, winter soft wheat