UK Harvest Data 2009

The NFU recently released data concerning the UK 2009 harvest reporting that production is down on the 5-year average by over a million tonnes. It is estimated that this year's wheat harvest will be around 13.9 million tonnes, 3.4 million tonnes lower than last year. The 5-year average for wheat is 15,106 million tonnes, from 1,921 hectares at 7.9 tonnes/hectare. The decrease is due to both lower sowing and lower yields. Farmers planted less cereals and oilseed rape and planted more lower input crops because of difficult autumn planting conditions, high input prices and declining forward prices. Together with drought affecting cereals in England, cereals output was down by 14%. Winter barley is down 300,000 tonnes to 2.5 million tonnes, spring barley is up 440,000 tonnes on last year to 3.8 million tonnes due to lower yields but a significant increase in sowing for 2009. Oilseed rape sowing decreased compared with 2008, but yields increased to give very similar results to last year.