Cereal harvest expected to be average

According to the current crop outlook, the cereal harvest is expected to be average, around 3.3 million tonnes, which would cover domestic consumption, says the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

Overall, the cereal harvest is expected to remain 16% below last year’s level.

The estimated cereal harvest of 3.3 million tonnes includes the four main crops in Finland: 1.4 million tonnes of barley, 1.1 million tonnes of oats, 710,000 tonnes of wheat, and 70,000 tonnes of rye.

The yield expectations for all cereals are lower than those of last year.

“The rye harvest will be cut by half, wheat by a fifth, barley by a sixth, and oats by a few per cent from the corresponding figures of last year. In terms of volume, the barley harvest will decrease the most, by 310,000 tonnes, while proportionally, the rye harvest will decrease the most, by 62%,” said Anneli Partala, a senior statistician at the Statistical Services of Luke.

If the estimate proves correct, the rye harvest will cover around 70% of the domestic demand. The deficit can be offset by the left-over in national stocks of the good harvest made in 2019.

The crop outlook for the most popular Finnish export cereal, oats, is roughly at the previous year’s level. It is therefore probable that the export of oats will also continue from the autumn harvest.

The area sown with peas increased by 80% from that of last year, and the crop is expected to be double the pea harvest made in 2019. The harvest would be the highest in the 100-year history of the statistics. The cultivation of feed peas, an indigenous source of protein for the Finnish feed industry, has increased.

The cultivation area of potatoes is the smallest in the history of the statistics, just over 20,000 hectares. Currently, the crop outlook is at last year’s level, just over 600 million kg.