French Wheat Classes

Besides the major wheat exporting countries USA, Canada, Australia and Argentina, Europe also plays quite a significant role, for like the USA it has an efficient and politically influential agricultural sector and a vigorous processing industry that has no difficulty in absorbing and making optimum use of the very different offers on the market. Within Europe it is France that traditionally leads the field. In no other European country does agriculture enjoy such a privileged position and high social status. Since 1979 France has felt the need to publish very comprehensive and detailed reports on the condition of each year's grain harvest in order to handle the increasingly difficult situation on the world market and within Europe itself. The reports are concerned with bread wheat, durum wheat and barley and cover three main topics:

• Distribution of varieties

• Comparison of costs with foreign competitors

• Quality analyses.

The survey for the distribution of varieties is carried out in April/May. Samples of the harvest are taken from farms and also from the trade. The analysis is the responsibility of Institut du Végétal ARVALIS, which receives strong support from the milling association ANMF (Association Nationale de la Meunerie Française). The system is organized and the reports made out by ONIC (Office National Interprofessionnel des Céréales).

1. Distribution of Varieties

in the 2003 Harvest The proportion of high-quality varieties has risen steadily over the past ten years, from 52% in 1996 to 77% in 2003. An overview is given in Tab. 56.

Tab. 56. Distribution of varieties in 2003

The current champion is the variety Apache, which first came onto the market officially in 1999 and now dominates the whole of the south-west (Fig. 33).

Fig. 33: Share of the wheat varieties in the total growing area in France

Fig. 34: Geographic distribution of wheat qualities and growing areas

The main growing areas are shown in Fig. 34. The diagram reveals that in contrast to Australia and the USA, for example, very large areas of the country quite distant from each other are used for wheat-growing. This is made even clearer by the distribution of the top variety, Apache, and the variety Soissons. Both for domestic use and for export the latter is the "senior French wheat variety" thanks to its remarkable resistance to sprouting. Although neither of the two varieties is grown in all parts of the country, they enjoy similar popularity in very different geographic regions.

Tab. 57: Growing areas of new varieties at their introduction

But here too, nothing is as constant as change. In the spring of 2004, two new varieties found their way into the "charts": Caphorn and Raspail (Tab. 57), both classified as BPS; the varieties Isengrain and Charget fell back, and ANMF regarded that as a success of its own efforts. Soissons remained largely stable, in spite of the general low level of sprouting resulting from the dry harvest of 2004.

2. Quality Classification

Fig. 35: Distribution of wheat over the four quality classes in the harvests of 2002 to 2004

Tab. 58: Grading of French wheat

The quality grading is comparatively simple and clear; Fig. 35 and Tab. 58 show the details. In spite of their simple structure (or maybe precisely because of it?) the systems are generally accepted both within France and in the export sector. But of course more details are needed to provide valid information, and in fact ONIC’s internal data goes into much more individual and regional detail than the information available to the customer. That becomes clear from Tab. 59, that shows a quality programme for the variety Apache and 15 locations that is understood everywhere in the world. For details of the Alveogram, which is widely used in France. The baking tests are described below:

Tab. 59: Quality data for the variety Apache in the 15 different growing regions

French Baking Tests (CNERNA Method)

Baking quality is assessed using pure flours to which malt has been added, if necessary, to correct amylase activity. Water absorption is the amount of water used in preparing the dough. It is expressed relative to a dough with a water content of 14%. The rating of a flour, expressed by a score of up to 300, includes volume, the appearance of the bread and its crumb, and also the kneading properties of the dough. In order to assess the final result more easily, most test bakeries generally use a scoring table followed by a qualifier. The scoring system, which is specific to ARVALIS, is summarized in Tab. 60.

Tab. 60: ARVALIS scoring system for French bread

In the exceptional year 2003, 30 mio t of quality wheat were produced in France. The average values are shown in Tab. 61.

Tab. 61: Typical data for French wheat from the 2003 harvest

3. Exports

Because of the apparent dominance of the "classic" wheat exporting countries USA and Canada it is often overlooked that France stil plays an extremely important role in the world market and that it was the second-biggest exporter in 2002/2003. Over half of the country's total exports of 15.8 mio t (to be precise: 8.8 mio t) went to countries outside the EU. Fig. 36 shows the major importers of French soft wheat of the last 4 years. Important harbours for wheat exports are Rouen (with Le Havre and Caen), Nantes and La Pallice (outer harbour of La Rochelle) for the south-west and Sète and Port La Nouvelle for the Mediterranean region. When treating French wheat flours it must be remembered that the average gluten structures of the export lots come very close to the top qualities from other parts of Europe. Their basic characteristics, expressed for example in kernel hardness, lie roughly between the US grades SRW and HRW. However, they do not achieve the best values of the top groups HRS and CWRS.

Fig. 36: Major importers for French soft wheat