An unusually dry period at the beginning of the year has led to water restrictions in 15 French départements – administrative areas equivalent to counties –, prompting fears of a serious drop in winter cereal yields, reports Radio France Internationale.
France is the European Union's biggest grain producer, and the world’s third largest exporter after the US and Russia.
But lower than usual winter rainfall is threatening to reduce crop yields at a time when the war in Ukraine has already disrupted supply chains and kept European prices near record highs.
France’s agriculture ministry has warned the rainfall shortfall will have a negative impact on this year's production of winter cereals, especially crops such as wheat and barley, which are in the development phase.
"Due to the absence of rain and particularly dry conditions, we know now that there will be an impact – still to be precisely determined – on cereal production," a ministry official said on Monday.
While winter crops can use their roots to draw on moisture, crops in shallow soils were expected to suffer yield losses from dryness, the official said.
"It's a delicate period for cereals," said Joël Limouzin from the FNSEA – France's largest farming union.
France's weather agency, Meteo-France, said on Sunday that rainfall in the first part of this year was down by a third.
"It's a big deficit," hydro-climatologist Florence Habets told RFI.
Meanwhile temperatures in parts of France this week are set to hit 30°C.
If the hot weather continued "there could be up to 40 percent yield loss", warned Limouzin.
The area in France worst affected by the drop in rainfall covers a band stretching from the south-east towards Brittany in the north-west.
But "no region is spared" said FNSEA's chief Christiane Lambert.