France

Miserable Summer Spells Gloom for French Farmers
Reuters, July 28, 2000

The gloomy weather that forced Parisians to switch on the heating this month - the country's coldest July in 20 years - will hit French farm revenues hard. “Even though grain, oilseed and pulse yields were looking promising, the incessant rains will trigger a very sharp drop in income,” Luc Guyau, head of the leading FNSEA farm union, told Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany in an open letter this week. “Today we've reached a point where the situation is becoming dramatic and is raising serious worries about the quality and quantity of the crops,” he said. Cereals and oilseeds crops had weathered an excessively dry spring and early summer and were on target for healthy, if not record production in 2000. Harvesting had only just begun when freak storms lashed the north of the country on July 2 and 3, downing power lines and damaging crops. Farmers reported wheat crops completely flattened by hail and rapeseed fields had turned white as violent winds split open stems.