Flax fibre volumes affected by early-season weather challenges
Weather challenges earlier in the year are likely to have a negative effect on Europe’s flax harvest for 2023.
Flax has a short growing season, and this was disrupted this year by a particularly long sowing period, the Alliance for European Flax-Linen & Hemp has explained, lasting from March until the beginning of May. Normally, the sowing period lasts from March to mid-April.
Alternating periods of dry spells and intense rainfall hampered early agricultural work that is “so crucial for flax”, the Paris-based alliance said.
It has estimated that farmers have grown flax on 147,000 hectares in France, Belgium and the Netherlands this year, an increase of 2% compared to 2022. The alliance said this showed that farmers have confidence in growing flax as a crop.
However, early feedback from farmers suggests yields for 2023 of between 3.5 and 5.5 tonnes of straw per hectare, compared to between 6 and 7 tonnes of straw in normal years. Farmers have said a yield of 7 tonnes of straw per hectare is still possible this year, but only on the very best plots.
Under normal retting conditions, the alliance has said, this should lead to an estimated drop in fibre volumes of between 26% and 36%. In 2022, farmers produced 152,000 tonnes of long fibres.
