9.1 Introduction

A traveller wandering in the French countryside can figure out that very little has changed in the last two centuries. Landscapes still evoke fields and crops painted by Auguste Millet, a famous painter of the École de Barbizon. It is true that France is a leading producer of cereals, being for example the leading European exporter of wheat, competing worldwide with countries like Ukraine or Kazakhstan. This probably explains why, from 1957, market operators have been drafting and improving a specialised voyage charterparty, the Continent Grain Charterparty better known today as SYNACOMEX 2000. SYNACOMEX 2000, in its recent versions, is said to have been inspired partly by the NORGRAIN 73 and GENCON forms. It is offered on the market among other specialised charters such as GRAINVOY 74, CENTROCON and AUSTWHEAT 1990.