One of the world’s agricultural giants, the European Union, is seeing its wheat and corn crops dwindle due to hot and dry weather that is lowering yields. In its World Agricultural Production report, the USDA lowered its forecast of the EU wheat crop by 2 percent and the corn crop by 3.5 percent from estimates made in early June. “Low rainfall levels, minimal soil moisture and high temperatures contributed to deterioration in crop conditions in the wheat/rapeseed belt,” says the report. The forecast for rapeseed was down by 3 percent.
In discussing the corn crop, the USDA said, “Extreme heat has intensified the dryness, particularly in Spain and the corn belt of southwest France where temperatures reached well over 40 degrees C [104 degrees F].” Corn in those regions was in “the highly sensitive silk/tasseling stage, when high temperatures can take a large toll” on yields, it said.
Despite the losses, the wheat and corn crops would be larger than the five-year average for Europe, although smaller than the 2014 bumper crops. The EU would grow 20 percent of the world’s wheat crop and 7 percent of the global corn crop under the USDA’s estimates.