In Burgundy and Franche-Comté, jars of mustard are becoming increasingly rare on supermarket shelves. The cause ? A mix of several hot topics, from local to international. And that is not likely to work out.
“I couldn’t find any mustard, it’s crazy!”, fumes a customer from Dijon. “We can come every day, we almost never find any”exclaims this consumer. In Côte-d’Or, in Nièvre, Yonne or even Saône-et-Loire, the mustard shelves are emptying and stores are having more and more difficulty getting supplies.
Global warming, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, government decisions that are hurting French industry… In a pot of mustard, we find all the hot topics of the moment. We explain to you why this shortage will certainly last.
Canada is the world’s largest exporter of mustard seeds. He supplied 80% of the seeds in France until weather events disrupted his harvests. A dome of extreme heat has been hitting the country for a few years (temperatures were around 50 degrees in 2021!) and this has terrible consequences for the mustard market.
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The harvest is halved and Canada has been planting half as much for two years. Result ? We go from 174,000 tonnes of mustard seeds in 2018 to only 71,000 tonnes in 2021. An extremely low yield that we had not seen since 1997 and which is not likely to improve with global warming.
“Even the years when the harvests were bad and when there was not much availability, we paid more and we had what we wanted. Today, we don’t have what we want. Little it doesn’t matter what price you pay”testifies Luc Vandermaesen, general manager of Reine de Dijon.
If the former world’s leading exporter of mustard seeds is experiencing unprecedented weather conditions, its competitors must face other problems. Indeed, the second exporting territory is none other than… Russia.
Currently sanctioned by a trade embargo over the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the country cannot export its mustard seeds. The war disrupted agri-food trade and mustard suffered the consequences. Ukraine is also one of the main exporters. In the midst of a conflict with its Russian neighbour, an entire economy is penalized.
The current leading country in the world in the production of mustard seeds is none other than Nepal, but it is not open to export.
France cannot meet its mustard needs. In 2016, while the country produced 12,000 tonnes of mustard seeds per year (far from the 32,000 needed for the country), a law undermined its production without offering an alternative.
Insecticides are now banned, a decision still contested today and which has important consequences for mustard seed fields. The flea beetle, a jumping insect of the Coleoptera order, is wreaking havoc in France since seed production has been divided by four in five years.
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In 2021, the country experiences an unprecedented freeze in April. The world of agriculture is suffering heavy losses and mustard seeds are no exception. As a result, only 4,000 tons are harvested at the end of the year. “For five years we have been doing half of what manufacturers ask of us”confides Fabrice Genin, a Burgundian farmer producer.
France is paying for its dependence on intracontinental agro-food trade. On the eve of an unprecedented mustard crisis, many say it is time for the country to strengthen its production system. A task that seems to be badly embarked on since there is still no real solution to replace the insecticide.
If the 2022 harvest is bad, we will clearly have no solutions.
Luc Vandermaesen
General Manager of Reine de Dijon
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Pire, more and more producers are turning their backs on the mustard industry, deemed too fragile and not profitable enough to maintain. “We were 350 producers and today we are only 250. My colleagues work less and less area, because the risk of making mustard is very high”, admits Fabrice Genin. The latter prefer to turn to rapeseed and sunflower whose prices are soaring.
The previous harvest showed worrying signs and that will not improve over time. Mustard is becoming scarce on supermarket shelves and consumers’ oversupply risks worsening an already fragile situation.
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