Grain floods in from the ‘bread basket of Europe’

FEARS that enlargement would swamp farm produce markets have been borne out, with a bumper grain harvest across Eastern Europe lifting EU cereal stocks to their highest level for a decade.

The European Commission’s main problem now is where to find stores for the grain which it buys into intervention from the 290 million tonnes harvested across the 25 member states in 2004.

And sources in the grain industry fear that production from the new eastern member states could become an annually recurring problem, following the 40% yield increase across the 10 new member states in 2004.