The heatwave that hit Europe in June reduced the value of grain crops by more than €2bn, with France and Hungary suffering the worst damage. This is reported by the Financial Times (FT), citing data from the European grain traders' association Coceral.
According to their information, for the four weeks after the heatwave, grain production forecasts in the European Union and the UK have been reduced by almost 9 million tonnes. Experts estimate the losses from crop failure at around €2.1bn based on national prices for wheat, barley, maize and other cereals, which is around 5% of the forecast value of the crop. The EU and UK corn harvest forecast was reduced from 57.2 million to 52.7 million tonnes.
France accounts for almost half of the damage to the cereal crop: the country's forecast was reduced by 4.1 million tonnes, worth around €891 million, with the bulk of the losses coming from maize. Hungary is the second worst affected, with the grain harvest forecast reduced by 2.4 million tonnes, estimated at around €444 million. Spain's losses amounted to 1.4 million tonnes (€276 million), while Germany's was a similar figure of €233 million.
Europe faced extremely hot weather in the second half of June. The thermometer in Western European countries exceeded 40 degrees. On July 9, the European Remote Sensing and Mapping Service Copernicus confirmed that last June was the hottest on record, with an average surface air temperature of 20.74 degrees Celsius.