The jump in grain prices has allowed FirstFarms to stick by hopes for full-year earnings despite the farm operator losing grain crops to Eastern Europe's floods and suffering a double whammy in dairy.

The Copenhagen-listed group admitted a DKK7m ($1.2m hit) to its arable operations in Slovakia, the centre of its farming empire, where 1,100 hectares were flooded in the spring deluge which caused widespread damage in Eastern Europe.

In dairy, the group suffered both from a slower-than-expected growth in its Slovakian dairy herd and a milk prices which had fallen short of assumptions.

While milk prices were "expected to continue to increase in the remaining part of the year", they would nonetheless average DKK2.17 a litre, lower than the forecast of DKK2.24 a litre.

Price fillip 

However, FirstFarms flagged better-than-expected yields in Romania and the "additional income" raised by selling grain into markets bouyed by drought in the former Soviet Union.

Since the end of June, "a part of the cash crops have been sold at prices higher than assumed".

The extra income had kept the group on track to hit turnover of DKK90m-95m and, potentially, breakeven at the pre-tax level for the first time in three years.

In the first six months of the year, the group achieved a pre-tax profit of DKK27,000, compared with a DKK10.3m loss a year before, despite a 36% slide to DKK18.8m in revenues. After-tax losses narrowed to DKK221,000 from DKK7.5m a hear before.

The group's shares closed up 1.8% at DKK57.00.