Mr. Michael Scannell:

We monitor these developments very carefully. We have very good and sophisticated satellite systems that give a read out on the climatic conditions throughout Europe, the impact on soil moisture level and in turn the impact for crops. Already we have had to revise downwards on a number of occasions our expected overall harvest. Two months ago, we had high expectations that we would have a very good harvest. Now we are expecting something more in line with the five-year average. We published our short-term outlook for cereal production last week. We expect a drop of approximately 2.6%, which is not alarming in these circumstances. For wheat we scaled back our forecast harvest from 130 million tonnes to 125 million tonnes, a not insignificant production but still in line with our five-year average.

Harvests tend to be unpredictable but even with the current prolonged dry conditions and even with the heatwave forecast for the next week or two, the harvest is sufficiently advanced at this stage for us to be pretty confident that we will nonetheless get a good harvest. Obviously, the risks are on the downside especially with the heatwave etc. There certainly will not be any issue with the availability of wheat on the European market. I made the point earlier that we have massive export availability. Our current projection is for 38 million tonnes. If necessary, if that had to be run down to keep us fed, that is what would happen. Obviously, that would have implications for global availability.