Survey shows wheat production down but oilseed stable in 2009
Wheat production is down on the five year average by over a million tonnes according to results from the NFU harvest survey released today.
With both area and average yields showing a reduction, findings from the annual NFU members’survey suggestUK wheat production in 2009 will be around 13.9 million tonnes, meaning wheat production this year is expected to be3.4 milliontonnes lower than last year due to both decreased yields and lower plantings.
Difficult autumn planting conditions,high input prices and declining forward prices, contributed to farmers planting less cereals and oilseed rapeand turning to lower input crops.These factors, coupled with drought affecting second wheat and spring barley in England, causedoutput of cereals todecline byan overall 14 per cent butoilseed rape yields offset lower plantings with productionvery similar to 2008.
In 2009UK winter barley production is estimated at 2.5 million tonnes and with lower yields is down over 300 thousand tonnes on last year where plantings have declined slightly.
With lower yields this yearUK spring barley production is estimated at 3.8 million tonnes, up by over440 thousand tonnes on last year where planting increased significantly for 2009harvest
Oilseed rape (spring and winter combined) has seen UK production estimated ataroundtwo million tonnes with yield increases over 2008 despite total plantings decreasing when compared to 2008.*
NFU combinable crops chairman Ian Backhouse thanked NFU Scotland for assistance in gathering data for the whole UK and his own NFU members for their help in gathering the data. He put this year’scereal production decrease largely down to due toreduced plantings with lower price prospects, high input costs and difficult planting conditions last autumn, after the washout summer of 2008.This was followed by cereal yields affected by difficult growing conditions during the season, with declining prices discouraging further investment in growing crops.
Mr Backhouse said:"With a difficult autumn planting in 2008 after one of the wettest summers on record, a very dry spring and delays to ripening and harvest by yet more abnormalsummer rains in 2009, crops bounced back to a large extent, and farmers overcame a challenging season.
"Second wheat was affected most by the poor growing conditions but first wheat yields were better then anticipated and have partly compensated. Quality is reported as good, particularly in first wheats with reasonable protein levels and good specification achieved by wheat growers across the country.
"Oilseed rape was very difficult to establish in the autumn of2008 and a certain amount was ploughed in with some replaced using spring varieties.The crop has shown a remarkable resilience and this year’s yields look like they have more than made up for the reduction in planted area of spring and winter crops combined."
