Farmers in France, Europe's biggest grain grower, have switched into soft wheat and durum at the expense of barley, which is in even more plentiful supply than had been thought.

The French farm office, FranceAgriMer, has forecast soft wheat plantings for next year's harvest at 4.89m hectares, up 3.0% year-on-year.

Sowings of winter durum, the wheat used in making pasta, have jumped 10.2% although, at 455,000 hectares, it remains a minority crop.

Last year of intervention 

The sowings have come in part at the expense of winter rapeseed, for which plantings have fallen by 0.4% to 1.47m hectares.

French farmers have been, after their German peers, the biggest users of intervention buying – which is being suspended next year - offering 313,100 tonnes last month.

And French barley supplies look even richer than had been thought, with AgriMer raising by 433,000 tonnes its forecast for stocks at the end of 2009-10, thanks to a better harvest than had been thought and weaker exports.

At 3.80m tonnes, they will be more than twice those at the start of the season.

Forecasts for Europe's barley stocks were already "pointing to very volumes of supply, pushing down the price and reducing the chances of a bounce back", French consultancy Agritel said in a report earlier this week.

"Only a weather alert for the 2010 harvest could underpin quotes", Agritel said.

Profitability question

The AgriMer estimates also came hours after Rabobank forecast a drop in European wheat plantings to 19.6m, down 4.0% year on year.

"Growing wheat is just about profitable in France and Germany," the analysts said.

"That may not be the case for more marginal areas, such as southern Italy, or parts of Eastern Europe which do not have the same level of state support."