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Joseph Menard, a dairy farmer in Brittany, says the country's driest spring in half a century has left him with just two weeks of animal fodder in stock.

"There hasn't been enough water for the grass to grow," Menard, who is also president of the agricultural office for Brittany's Ille-et-Vilaine region, said. "We get one or two hours of sporadic rain, but that's not enough to grow enough feed for both daily use and stock for the summer."

Unseasonably high temperatures that resulted in the second-warmest April since 1900 and the driest spring in about 50 years have prompted France to restrict water use in some areas.

The weather is raising prospects for a repeat of the 2003 heat wave, which resulted in more than 14,000 deaths in France and left Europe's agricultural and forest industries with about $18.5 billion in losses. Adverse global weather, ranging from the flooding of the Mississippi River to droughts in Kansas, Oklahoma and parts of Europe, is damaging farms and crops.

While the growing season is early in parts of the Northern Hemisphere, corn futures almost doubled in the past year as U.S. stockpiles headed for a 15-year low. Wheat prices rose about 64 percent in the same period.

The warm spell affecting northern Europe may further cut the output of crops such as wheat and corn, boosting prices for everything from baguettes to pasta.

Although it's too early to count the cost of the current dry spell in France, Europe's largest agricultural producer, the north and northwestern regions of the country have been hit particularly hard, said Dominique Barrau, the secretary general of Paris-based farmers' union Federation Nationale des Syndicats d'Exploitants Agricoles.

"We are on the same path as in 2003," he said in a phone interview. "It's more difficult for livestock farmers now since their situation has progressively worsened since 2009 and they don't have the funds to fall back on."

French measures to prepare for another possible heat wave, including registering old people at risk with local municipalities, will kick in on June 1. The steps were put in place because many of the people who died in 2003 were elderly.