The latest and final estimates for European cereals crops, released on Friday 28th September by European farmers’ organisation Copa-Cogeca, reveal a drop in production following erratic weather which hampered European farmers throughout much of the growing season.

EU cereal production is expected to drop by 2.2 percent, Copa revealed last week. Although this comes after one of the most challenging years for farmers in Europe, worldwide production remains at near record levels. Nevertheless, Copa-Cogeca said its findings “highlight the need to maintain full production capacity in the future to meet growing demand.”

Of Europe’s three zones, Spain and Portugal suffered drought this year, while frost kill and bad weather for the harvest had a severe impact on wheat production in many Member States, causing production to drop by 1.8 percent. Central Europe had good harvest conditions after initial concerns over wet weather; the area which was destroyed was replaced by cereal varieties with a lower yield. Despite an increased maize area, production is also expected to fall as a result of bad weather conditions during the spring period.

The revelation will be bad news for many of Europe’s farmers, as their misfortune is being repeated in the World’s other cereal producing regions. Drought in the Black sea and United States has affected yields of the regions’ major export crops and led to record high prices for a number of cereals.

EU cereals production is now expected to be down by 6 million tons in 2012/13, and similar trends have been found in other parts of the world, with wheat being hit especially hard in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, more than absorbing the effects of increased production in the US.

Copa-Cogeca Secretary-General Pekka Pesonen used the opportunity presented by this week’s findings to call for production to be fronted in forthcoming Common Agricultural Policy reforms. Copa has frequently attempted to derail attempts to increase environmental and social considerations of the reformed CAP, in favour of market-friendly measures.

Nevertheless, the Commission has stated its intention to stick by efforts to ‘green’ the CAP, which accounts for around 40 percent of the entire EU budget, in order to justify such a large amount of public spending on private enterprises to a European Public which has consistently called for improvements in the quality of Europe’s environment and greater support for biodiversity.

Pesonen said on Friday, “The future Common Agricultural Policy must maintain EU production capacity and ensure farmers have sufficient flexibility to develop their best crop rotation in response to market demand. The Commissions’ new greening measures are also estimated to reduce production by up to 3% and this must be revised. As cereals are traded throughout the season, the average cereals price traded at farm level is lower than the price on the futures market. Policy decisions should consequently be based on the price traded at farm level and not on futures price”.