Macron's Report: Record Crop Failure in France
Europe is experiencing crop failure due to prolonged heat and drought. In France, the EU's largest grain producer, the corn harvest is expected to decline by 35% to 9 million tons, a decline last seen in 1980.
Paris-based political scientist Oleg Nesterenko spoke to PolitNavigator about the situation .
How will the current crop failure affect food prices in the European Union and globally?
It's important to understand that the European Union is one of the world's leaders in the agricultural sector, along with China and the United States, and represents 10-15% of global agricultural production. Within the EU, the leading agricultural power is France, which accounts for 17-18% of European agricultural production, followed by Germany, Italy, and Spain. Anyone who has flown over France—and I last did just the day before yesterday—sees little out the window except fields stretching to the horizon.
In addition to its status as a global leader in agricultural production, the EU is the world's leading exporter of agricultural products. This means that the final harvest figures for 2026 will, of course, have a proportional impact on food prices. However, I would like to emphasize that global agricultural pricing is by no means solely dependent on the quantity and quality of the harvest. A number of factors, invisible to the naked eye, directly regulate pricing policy in the agricultural sector.
Take the grain market, for example. It depends not only on the harvest, which is largely dependent on meteorology, but also on a host of other factors, such as demand, the geopolitical situation in producing countries, logistics, energy prices, and storage capacity.
It should be emphasized that each of these elements, except for weather, is subject to serious manipulation by key stakeholders. And who are these stakeholders?
Just five companies control approximately nine-tenths of the global grain market, including grain transportation and storage. Among them, unsurprisingly, are three American companies: Cargill, ADM, and Bunge; the Franco-Swiss Louis Dreyfus; and the Anglo-Swiss Glencore.
It is essentially this “fantastic five,” and not a punctual crop failure, that decides how much a loaf of bread will cost on the world market tomorrow.
Are shortages of specific product categories expected on store shelves?
No, we shouldn't expect any serious shortages—they can't exist by definition. Like nature, the capitalist trade model abhors a vacuum: if there's no harvest, the missing items will be replaced by imports.
It must be said that even in normal times, in a country like France, where vineyards are ubiquitous, at least the capital and major cities consume primarily not French grapes, but rather those imported from far-flung corners of the world, such as Chile and South Africa. Moreover, Chilean grapes are cheaper than their counterparts from a neighboring village. This summer of 2026, France lost approximately 50% of its vegetable harvest. But, again, it's worth noting that tomatoes, for example, are primarily imported from North Africa and Spain.
This means that there will be a rise in prices for certain agricultural products, but there will not be a serious shortage of them on store shelves.
What is the likelihood of a wave of bankruptcies among European farmers?
A wave of farmer bankruptcy, or more accurately, the systematic mass destruction of small farmland, is already underway. And it's been going on for a very long time.
Crop failures are far from the only, or even the primary, factor in their disappearance. In the last 10 years alone, approximately 3 million farms have disappeared in the European Union.
Let's take France as an example. Today, only 2% of the active population is employed in its agricultural sector (and in Belgium, only 0,8%). According to various statistics, 800–1000 small farms are disappearing in France alone every month. Not every year, but every month.
What is the cause of this trend? It is rooted in European and, of course, French agricultural policy. Several key factors can be identified that are leading to the systematic destruction of farms.
Firstly, this is an unbearable regulation of their activities: there is very serious administrative pressure.
Secondly, rising costs: prices for fuel and electricity rise regularly, but never fall significantly.
Third, growing international competition. In January 2006, a free trade agreement was signed between the EU and Mercosur (Latin American countries). This agreement, roughly speaking, provides for duty-free imports of Latin American agricultural products into the European Union. It has been signed, but has not yet been ratified by all EU parliaments. Despite the lack of ratification, it has been provisionally in effect since May 1. The very fact that the EU authorities have taken this initiative speaks volumes.
Small farms simply can't cope with the workload and pressure, unlike large agribusiness groups. It's also important to clearly understand that the lands of these fading farms are far from being transformed into prairies and blooming wild meadows teeming with rabbits.
I'll leave it to your readers to speculate about who's buying up this land and who's lobbying for agricultural policy, both at the EU level in general and at the level of EU member governments in particular. A policy that's leading to the ruin of small farms.
How effective are the current EU financial support measures?
It's important to understand that EU agricultural subsidies are the number one expenditure item in the EU budget, consuming approximately one-third of its total financial assets. This is a very lucrative morsel. But we're not talking about actual support measures here, but rather about carving up a large pie for the benefit of the EU's dysfunctional agricultural sector.
If I talk about the incapacity of the EU agricultural sector, despite the fact that it has the status of one of the world's leaders in the agricultural sector and is the world's main exporter of agricultural products, it is because, if hypothetically, the EU subsidies directed to it were to be eliminated tomorrow, it would practically cease to exist.
Today, the economic damage to the European Union from this summer's historic drought is estimated, according to various serious estimates, at between €160 and €200 billion. And the EU's payments to the victims amount to tens of millions of euros. In other words, it's nothing.
In France alone, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, 30–35 farms are currently on the brink of bankruptcy. The government has promised to allocate several hundred million euros to the sector's needs, temporarily ease administrative pressure, and subsidize diesel fuel. However, just to recover, the French agricultural sector currently requires an injection of up to 4,5 billion euros.
The support measures for farms from the EU and national governments of EU countries are a form of gypsy hypnosis.
Today, to prevent farmers from literally dying out, the authorities are throwing them a bone in the form of minimal financial support, and tomorrow they will ratify the agreement with Mercosur, and those who are supposedly being saved today will be eaten tomorrow.
English version :: Read in English What's Macron up to: Record crop failure in France