Wheat Hurt By Endless Rain In Western Europe, While Drought Grinds Down Ukraine's Harvest - Reuters

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LONDON - Europe's wheat crop has rain in all the wrong places this year, with already sodden France, Germany and Britain getting a further soaking this week, while drought has devastated countries further east.

Showers have spread across much of France, including large grain growing regions, heightening worries about the quality of wheat and barley harvests. "Every day that goes by, the risk of a lower quality harvest is rising," one trader said.

Farmers in Ukraine, by contrast, have been pleading for rain to salvage some of their wheat crop, with southern and central regions facing the worst drought in a century.

Early winter wheat yields averaged about 1.31 tonnes per hectare and barley 1.57 tonnes in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, sharply down from an average grain yield of 2.48 tonnes last year and 2.85 tonnes in 2005. Forecasters says drought has affected about 60 percent of Ukraine's grain and the government has already imposed stringent limits on exports.

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/42816/story.htm