Why a French heat wave could mean hunger in North Africa
Guillaume Lefort combs his hands through stalks of pale green wheat, his crop stretching out behind his 19th-century farmhouse. Clouds hang ominously overhead with predictions of rain – a welcome relief from the unseasonably high temperatures that have resulted in drought conditions and troubled France’s farmers since April.
“The recent rain has helped, every little bit helps, but it’s not enough,” says Mr. Lefort, a grain farmer who owns 860 acres of land across three farms in the Combs-la-Ville area, just south of Paris. “The climate is my boss. Sometimes he’s good to us; sometimes he’s unfair. But each year it’s getting harder as the weather patterns become more erratic.”
Like wheat farmers across France and much of western Europe,
