Global warming: towards a shortage of pasta? – Boursorama

French manufacturers are already planning a price increase. As for a shortage, it should not be ruled out, even if such a concern is premature, according to them.

This could be one of the consequences of global warming: repeated droughts, which threaten the production of wheat and therefore the making of pasta. This is also the case this year, with a historic drought in Canada.

“Climate change is endangering the pasta market” , warned Sifpaf (union of industrial pasta manufacturers) and CFSI (French committee for industrial semolina), in an alarming press release Monday, August 16.

The main reason is the heat wave of exceptional intensity that hit Canada this summer, the leading producer of durum wheat, of which it alone accounts for two-thirds of world trade. It makes pastoral industrialists fear a “durum wheat shortage” and a “historic surge in world prices” . The “heat dome” which has affected the country, “should lead to a harvest (…) of less than 4.2 million tonnes, 32% less than the average for the last five years and nearly 30% less than forecast for July 20, “according to figures from the Canadian statistical office StatCan.

Recurrent heatwaves are a clear marker of global warming, scientists say, and these heat waves are set to multiply, lengthen and intensify even more.

Rising wheat prices

The prices of a ton of durum wheat have already started to get carried away, confirms Arthur Portier, analyst at Agritel: “One month ago, we were at 335 dollars, and today we are more than 430 dollars. The market took $ 100 in a month “ , he told AFP. Something to worry about manufacturers for whom durum wheat, the main raw material with water, represents at least 50% of production costs.

Because if the French manufacturers, for example, source exclusively in France, the increase also affects the Hexagon: “In France, it increased by more than 30%, of approximately 110 euros per tonne”, indicated to the ‘AFP François Rouilly, Managing Director of Panzani.

“World production this year is particularly low and demand will be 2 Mt higher than production, bearing in mind that we have extremely low carryover stocks,” he added. In France, “a third of durum wheat production is intended for the domestic market, the other two thirds for export to the European Union and the Maghreb countries”, according to Christine Petit, general secretary of the Sifpaf union.

A “narrow market”

But if, in the hexagon, the production of durum wheat exceeds the needs, “all the industrialists of the North and the South of Europe have increased tenfold their purchases, because they suspect that Canada will not be able to satisfy the world supplies” , according to Christine Petit, who describes a “narrow market” .

The concern is all the greater because beyond the aspect of volumes, there are concerns about quality: Arthur Portier spoke of “scalding risks on the wheat that will be harvested” in Canada. This phenomenon, which can occur in the event of extreme heat during the last weeks preceding the harvest, constitutes an accident in the growth of the grain, which results in poorer filling of the latter.

In France, on the other hand, it is the heavy rains of the last weeks which lead to fear of very heterogeneous qualities depending on the production areas.

In the immediate future, manufacturers have asked the public authorities “for an emergency plan” to ensure their supply of French wheat and to ensure that distributors pass on “the explosion in the price of durum wheat in the selling prices”. “We will have no choice, it will be necessary for the price of pasta to increase on the shelf,” warned François Rouilly, stressing that this increase, “by a few cents” , should not significantly burden purchasing power.

Regarding a possible shortage on the shelves, François Rouilly considers this concern premature: “At some point, we may have to make arbitrations”, he nevertheless indicated. During the last crisis of this type in 2007, France, which produces only 40% of its pasta consumption, had seen Italian manufacturers refuse to deliver certain brands of distributors, too inflexible for their taste on prices.