The area of winter grain in France is expected to increase by 2,3% to 6,4 million hectares. Winter rapeseed cultivation is expected to grow more sharply, returning to its 2023 level with a 6,4% increase.
At this stage of the season, growing conditions are generally better than last year, according to the Agreste statistics office of the French Ministry of Agriculture in an initial estimate for the 2026 harvest year. For winter grains, the area under cultivation is still 2% smaller than the average for the years 2021 to 2025, according to current data.
The rapeseed area will continue to grow in 2023, reaching its highest level since the decline in cultivation area in 2019. Prior to that, the area in France fluctuated between 1,4 and 1,6 million hectares for a long period. In the two main production regions, Centre-Val de Loire (+3,2%) and Grand Est (+2,0%), expansion will remain limited next year.
At the beginning of this month, the sowing of winter grains was almost complete, Agreste notes. According to the current estimate, the growth in winter wheat is in line with the total area of winter grain, i.e., an increase of 2,35. This brings the total area of winter wheat for the 2026 harvest to 4,6 million hectares. This is still slightly less than in the years 2021 to 2023, when between 4,7 and 5 million hectares of winter wheat were grown in France.
According to Agreste, the development of winter wheat is somewhat further along than usual at this early stage. This is particularly true for crops in the Hauts-de-France departments in the north of the country, Pays de la Loire west of Paris, and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in the southeast.
More winter barley
Winter barley cultivation is expected to grow by 3,1% to 1,23 million hectares. This represents a recovery from last year's low point, when the area remained at less than 1,2 million hectares. Unlike winter wheat, barley crop development is somewhat slower than in previous years, although conditions are also reported to be somewhat better than a year ago.
Winter rapeseed for the 2026 harvest has been sown on 1,34 million hectares. The increase was particularly high in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté department: +13%. France is the largest rapeseed producer in the European Union, with a harvest of 4,6 million tons in 2025. Germany is second with just under 4 million tons this year. In Poland, production rose to 3,6 million tons last year.