U.K.'s Wheat Seen Below 15 Million Tons by INTL FCstone

Wheat production in the U.K., the European Union’s third-largest grower, may drop below 15 million metric tons, according to INTL FCStone Inc.

The wheat harvest may be in “the mid-to-low 14 million ton range,” analysts Jaime Nolan-Miralles and Rory Deverell said today in an e-mailed report. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has projected U.K. output at 15.5 million tons, 1.6 percent larger than a year earlier. Excessive rains this year delayed plant maturation and left crops susceptible to disease, the U.K.’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has said.

“Results coming from the field in the U.K. continue to foster a large degree of variability,” Nolan-Miralles and Deverell wrote.

France and Germany are the largest EU wheat growers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Whitney McFerron in London at wmcferron1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net