France’s Wheat Area to Slump to Nine-Year Low on Winter Kill

France’s soft-wheat growing area may fall to the lowest in nine years after freezing temperatures destroyed fields in the European Union’s largest grower of the grain, the government’s crop office reported.

The area may fall 5.4 percent to 4.72 million hectares (11.7 million acres) from 4.98 million hectares in 2011, according to data from FranceAgriMer, which last month estimated farmers had planted 5.07 million hectares of soft wheat, an increase of 1.7 percent over last year’s area.