One hectare of soft French winter wheat will yield 25 000 baguettes. Nine million hectares are sown to wheat in France and the yield is about six tonnes a hectare (so it takes 6 tonnes of wheat to make those 25 000 baguettes). That wheat, ground into flour, costs the boulanger about 10c per baguette.
The French wheat harvest is 30 to 40 million tonnes annually and France is the fifth largest wheat producer in the world, and second largest exporter of wheat (Australia is the ninth biggest producer and fourth biggest exporter, mostly of hard wheat, unlike France).
Chances are your baguette in France was made with wheat grown in Centre Val de Loire. The Region is the biggest cereal producer in Western Europe.
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