French soft wheat exports to Morocco are expected to drop in the current 2026/27 season after improved rainfall boosted the North African country's domestic harvest, industry officials said on Tuesday.

France exported 3.5 million metric tons of wheat to Morocco during the 2025/26 June-to-May marketing season when drought undermined Moroccan output and quality, said Philippe Heusele, international head of French grain industry group Intercereales.

Typically a major buyer, Morocco suspended soft wheat imports in June, however, to protect the local harvest after it more than doubled to 4.4 million metric tons.

Imports resumed in September. But France will likely export less wheat to Morocco from September 2026 to May 2027, Heusele told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting with Moroccan traders.

"We have sufficient supplies available to meet Morocco’s needs without any difficulty," he said.

France reported a wheat harvest of 32 million tons this year. Following the lifting of the import ban, it has sold 600,000 tons to Morocco so far in October, according to Quentin Bellet of the French foreign grain trade union.

Bellet estimated Morocco's imports of French soft wheat from September to May at 2.5 million tons, although he said the figure remains uncertain given unstable conditions in the Black Sea, another key producing region.

BLACK SEA INSTABILITY AND TIGHTENING WHEAT SUPPLIES

"We hope the situation in the Black Sea region finds a solution so that the market can regain some calm and stability," said Moulay Abdelkader Alaoui, head of Morocco's national millers federation.

Strong European demand was tightening wheat supplies and pushing prices higher as Moroccan importers sought wheat from France, Germany and other European suppliers to rebuild stocks, he said.

Currently, Moroccan stocks stand at 600,000 tons, equivalent to roughly two months of domestic consumption, he added.

September's import subsidy failed to fully offset the gap between import costs and domestic selling prices, limiting purchases to importers with immediate supply needs, he said.

The government increased the import subsidy to 44.48 dirhams per quintal ($44.63 per ton) in October, from 20.8 dirhams a month earlier, state grains agency ONICL said on Tuesday.

The rebound in wheat arrivals in October could strain port logistics and trucking capacity, risking a repeat of the congestion seen earlier this year, Alaoui said.

Earlier this year, adverse weather delayed the unloading of grain cargoes at Casablanca port, forcing vessels to wait at anchorage and increasing costs for importers.

(Reuters)