Food & Farming · Thursday, 27 August 2026

01 · Briefing · what happened

France bends the rules that define comte and beaufort, because the grass is gone

Food & Farming 1 min 31 sources

A historic drought left French mountain pastures bare, so the state let protected-cheese makers feed grain brought in from elsewhere. The whole value of the label is that this is not allowed.

62,000 t

comte made last year

France's top-selling traditional cheese, all from raw Jura milk [1]

95%

of mainland France in drought

through July, before the grazing rules were eased [1]

70%

of salers makers paused

they stopped rather than feed their cows outside the rule [1]

4.29%

butterfat in America's milk

up from 3.66% in 2010, because buyers pay for solids, not volume [8]

At a glance

France's farm ministry gave makers of comte, beaufort and abondance a temporary break from the grazing rules their protected label requires. [1]
They may now supplement their cows' diets with fodder and grain brought in from outside their own protected area, which the label normally forbids. [1]
Comte is France's top-selling traditional cheese, with more than 62,000 tonnes made last year from raw milk in the Jura mountains. [1]
Drought covered 95% of mainland France in July, and grass on permanent pasture was growing a third below its 1989-2018 average on 10 August. [1]
INAO, the agency that writes and polices the labels, called the drought historic and is preparing the same relief for reblochon, cantal and two blue cheeses. [1]
About 70% of the makers of salers, another protected cheese, stopped production this summer rather than break the rule. [1]
One Normandy dairy is turning out 400 to 450 neufchatel cheeses a day instead of the usual 600 to 700, because the cows give less milk. [1]
It is not only cheese: French potato growers expect a 23% smaller crop after five heatwaves, and the grape harvest has started early. [1]
No European food crop escaped this drought, and Rabobank puts global farm productivity 21% below where it would be without climate change. [2]
Forecasters say El Nino is strengthening, and that Pacific warming is part of what made this European drought one of the worst in living memory. [2][28]
Satellites show heat and drought push plants to peak their water use up to two hours earlier in the day. [7] A second study puts the spread of combined drought-and-heat zones at an extra 10 million square kilometres since 1982. [6]
American cheese is meanwhile getting cheaper, not scarcer: down 4.2% on a year earlier in July, while all food was up 3.0%. [3]

Forces in play

Pasture failure High↑

Grass growth is a third under its long-run average, and Kansas drought deepened again last week under triple-digit heat. [1][24]

Label credibility Building↑

Seven protected cheeses now have a waiver or have asked for one, and roquefort's sheep graziers are next in the queue. [1]

Dairy demand shifting Building↑

Buyers want protein: whey is at a record world price and America is short of cottage cheese, while ice-cream sales fall. [9]

Adaptation effort Easing↑

Shropshire breeders are crossing wild lettuce relatives for heat tolerance, and a Gloucestershire farm has switched to flood-tolerant grass. [5][4]

In play INAO — the French agency that writes and polices the protected-origin rules, and granted the waivers Comte, beaufort and abondance makers — first to be allowed feed from outside their own area Salers producers — about 70% stopped making cheese instead of bending the rule Annie Genevard — France's agriculture minister, holding crisis talks with local authorities next week

How it unfolded

July drought covers 95% of mainland France [1]
10 Aug grass growth measures a third below the 1989-2018 average [1]
Over the summer about 70% of salers makers pause production [1]
Wednesday the state grants comte, beaufort and abondance a temporary grazing waiver [1]
Next week the agriculture minister holds crisis talks before emergency measures [1]

Where this points

The test is whether the waivers stop at this summer: the agency has more cheeses queued, and roquefort's sheep graziers have already asked. [1]

Also today

9 more stories on this beat.

Crop tour puts US corn under USDA

The Pro Farmer tour forecast 15.344 billion bushels of US corn, below the USDA's own estimate of 16.013 billion. [10] The USDA's 12 August report also cut Michigan's yield to 174 bushels an acre and Wisconsin's to 184. [12][13]

Why it matters — Scouts found strong crops in eastern Iowa but drought damage west of them, and Indiana took 7 to 17 inches of rain. [11][14]
EPA weighs 34 refinery waivers

The EPA is reviewing 34 small-refinery exemptions from the biofuel blending mandate, which could free 1.2 to 1.8 billion compliance credits. [15] The American Soybean Association says that would erase about 500 million gallons of biodiesel demand. [15]

Why it matters — A mandate with a hardship clause is only as firm as the hardship clause, which is the same shape as the cheese waiver. [15]
Black Sea attacks squeeze wheat

Attacks on ports and vessels have shut terminals and cancelled cargoes in peak export season, pushing Chicago wheat up more than 17% since early July. [16] Australian wheat is quoted at $315 to $320 a tonne into Asia. [16]

Why it matters — Egypt and Indonesia lean on Black Sea wheat for much of their second-half supply and must now buy dearer grain. [16]
Sulfur past $1,000 lifts fertiliser

Sulfur has gone from under $100 a tonne in 2024 to over $1,000 now, dragging phosphate fertiliser up with it. [17] Making a tonne of DAP takes about 0.4 tonnes of sulfur, most of it a by-product of oil and gas. [17]

Why it matters — Farmers buy fertiliser months before they plant, so the 2027 crop's costs are being set now. [17]
Two egg outbreaks, 513 people

A Belgian farm's eggs infected at least 306 people, the country's biggest salmonella cluster, and up to 2 million eggs were recalled. [18] In Britain, imported eggs eaten in cafes infected 207 people, killed one and put 34 in hospital. [19]

Why it matters — Nothing in the reporting links the two, and the shared fact is simply that eggs cross borders before anyone counts them. [19]
Michigan's cherry capital is failing

Late frosts, brown rot after heavy rain, and an invasive fruit fly have hit northern Michigan's cherry growers, and some will not harvest at all this year. [20]

Why it matters — An economist at Michigan State says the outlook is worse than the numbers show. [20]
Pennsylvania opens $10m in freeze grants

Pennsylvania will open applications for $10 million of state aid to fruit farmers hit by an April freeze that cost the state $150 to $200 million. [21] One orchard cut its seasonal worker visas from 15 to four. [21]

Why it matters — The money arrives four months after the frost, and the crop it was meant to save is about a quarter of normal. [21]
USDA puts $95m into school food

USDA announced up to $70 million for school kitchen equipment and up to $25 million more in Farm to School grants for this financial year. [22]

Why it matters — It is aimed at buying more American-grown food for school meals, which makes schools a guaranteed market for nearby farms. [22]
Longer season, same spring frost

A study of southern Sweden, Denmark and the Baltics projects the growing season starting earlier while the last spring frost barely moves. [23] The result is more frost days at the crop's most sensitive stage. [23]

Why it matters — Warming's one advertised gift to northern farming can only be collected by planting into a risk that did not shrink. [23]

02 · Lesson · why it matters

A promise is only worth what it costs to keep

A rule everyone would follow anyway proves nothing, so the only year it means something is the year keeping it hurts.

How it works

A label promises a way of making, not a taste
The promise is worth something because it cannot be bent
A bad year makes keeping it expensive
The rule is relaxed so the makers survive
The promise is now known to be bendable

The twist

A rule only proves something in the years obeying it hurts, and that is exactly the year it gets suspended.

Where you've seen this

Central banks

an inflation target says nothing in the years hitting it is easy

Exam grades

the boundary gets moved in the year the students do badly

Emergency powers

a limit on the state is only tested during the emergency it was written for

The catch

Bending a rule can also be the honest thing: a promise kept until every maker is gone protects a name nobody makes any more.

And the whole of it

Everyone here is acting reasonably: the farmer with no grass, the minister who cannot watch herds sold, the agency that must keep the name meaning something. The guarantee still gets spent, and no one seat, ours included, can see how much.

03 · Lab · your turn

Six Summers, One Promise

Rehearse spending a guarantee's credibility in order to keep the people it protects alive.

04 · Truth · what's really going on

Stripped of the framing

France is protecting its cheesemakers by relaxing the definition of the cheese, which moves the cost off farmers now and onto the label's meaning later.

Why it lands — The relief is announced as a technical, temporary adjustment, and that framing is what makes a change to a permanent guarantee sound like paperwork.

Claimed

What people said. Not yet a fact.

INAO, the French origin-and-quality agency

The drought is historic, and the changes to the grazing rules are temporary. [1]

It is already preparing the same relief for reblochon, cantal, bleu d'Auvergne and fourme d'Ambert. [1]
The American Soybean Association

Extra refinery waivers would erase about 500 million gallons of biodiesel demand and $1 billion of soybean revenue. [15]

That is the association's own estimate, not the EPA's. [15]
A food-safety analyst quoted by FoodNavigator

Rising recalls may reflect consolidation, with a few large suppliers serving many brands at once. [26]

He also said the variability between recalls makes any single cause hard to identify. [26]
Nestle Malaysia's nutrition executive

Asia now faces a triple burden, where hunger, missing nutrients and obesity sit in one household. [30]

A manufacturer framing the problem as nutrition quality rather than food quantity is describing a market it sells into. [30]
Sociologist Lewis Bassett, in a Guardian column

About 57% of what Britain eats is ultra-processed, against roughly 14% in France. [27]

The contrast is used there to argue about class and taste, not about protected-origin rules. [27]

Verified

What we could actually stand behind.

Grass growth on French permanent pasture was a third below the 1989-2018 average on 10 August. [1]

How we checked — A measurement from the French agriculture ministry's own statistical service, quoted directly rather than summarised.
US cheese was 4.2% cheaper than a year earlier in July and butter 8.1% cheaper, while all food was 3.0% dearer. [3]

How we checked — USDA's weekly dairy report prints the price index components; the direction is the opposite of the French shortage.
US consumer prices rose 3.7% in the year to July on the Federal Reserve's preferred measure. [31]

How we checked — A Bureau of Economic Analysis release, reported the same week, and the backdrop against which every food price is read.
The crop tour and the USDA disagree about the US corn harvest by roughly 670 million bushels. [10]

How we checked — Both figures are published in full, and we print both rather than choosing between them.

Nobody knows

Open questions — ours included.

Whether this summer's waivers end with this summer.

No source in the pool states an expiry date, and the agency is already preparing more of them. [1]
Whether the Belgian and British egg outbreaks share a source.

Both involve eggs and one involved imports, but neither food agency has stated any link. [18][19]
How much US corn there actually is.

Six senators have asked USDA to explain a large error in its own export figures and what staff losses did to its data. [25]
What a relaxed rule does to what shoppers will pay for these cheeses.

No price data for the affected cheeses appears anywhere in the pool. [1]

Who gains

Comte, beaufort and abondance makers — They keep producing and selling under the protected name while feeding bought-in grain. [1]
Feed and grain merchants — A rule that kept outside fodder out of three protected areas has been lifted at once. [1]
Small oil refiners — If the EPA grants the 34 waivers, they avoid buying up to 1.8 billion biofuel compliance credits. [15]

Who pays

Salers makers who stopped — About 70% paused production rather than break the rule, and had no waiver while they did it. [1]
Everyone who pays extra for the label — The premium buys a guarantee about method, and the method is suspended for this year's cheese. [1]
US soybean and corn growers — They planted with fertiliser and fuel priced up by the Iran war, and now face waivers cutting biofuel demand. [11][15][29]

05 · Hope · carry this

France did not let the label quietly slip; it said out loud what was being suspended and why. A promise bent in public is one that can still be mended.