FIGURES published last week show Scotland’s 2017 cereal harvest is estimated to have increased four per cent over 2016.
The latest data, released by the Scottish Government’s chief statistician, are on a par with the longer-trend 10-year average. Scottish farms produced 2.9 million tonnes of cereals this year, including 1.8 million tonnes of barley and 900,000 tonnes of wheat.
This year’s increase in production is due to an 11 per cent increase in barley which offset a four per cent fall in wheat. The overall area of land sown has increased by one per cent, with 433,000 hectares of cereal grown in 2017. Overall yields averaged around 6.6 tonnes per hectare, ranging from 5.7 tonnes per hectare for oats to 8.1 for wheat.