Cereal And Oil Seed Rape Harvest Statistics

20th December 2012

Scotland's Chief Statistician today published the Final Estimate of the Cereal and Oilseed Rape Harvest 2012.

This publication updates the provisional harvest estimates published in October and provides commentary and graphics on the latest annual changes and trends over the past 20 years.

Compared to the 2011 harvest, total cereal production decreased by 15 per cent to 2.5 million tonnes. This was due to a 17 per cent reduction in average yields to 5.5 tonnes per hectare, despite a 2 per cent increase in planted areas.

In 2012 barley production fell by 8 per cent to 1.7 million tonnes. Wheat production fell by 30 per cent to 673,000 tonnes. Oats production fell by 11 per cent to 108,000 tonnes. Oilseed rape production fell by 29 per cent to 106,000 tonnes.

The results confirm expected trends published on October 15, 2012. The final estimate of total cereal production is around 0.1 per cent (2,000 tonnes) lower than the initial estimate.

These statistics help the government to form, monitor and evaluate policy, and to assess the economic well-being of the cereal sector. They are required by law by the Statistical Office of the European Communities. They also feed into the UK cereals balance sheets, which is the prime tool for tracking new developments in the UK cereals industry and determining their impact on the market.

Valuations of cereal and oilseed production in Scotland will be released in the Farm Income Estimates statistics publication on the January 31, 2013. Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.