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Production of cereals, dried pulses and oilseeds 2017. Preliminary statistics for the whole country:

Parts of this year's harvest were left on the fields

Statistical news from Statistics Sweden and Swedish Board of Agriculture 2017-11-15 9.30

The total grain harvest for this year is estimated at just over 5.9 million tonnes. That is 9 percent more than last year and 8 percent more than the average for the last five years. If crops were harvested before the autumn rains, yield levels were often relatively high. But more than 2 percent of the cereal crop area was unharvested, with wide regional variations. The summer drought also reduced the yields in many areas.

Preliminarily, 2 percent of the area with peas and 4 percent of the area with field beans are also estimated to be unharvested because of the rainy autumn. However, the statistics are more uncertain than usual, as some farmers have still not finished the harvest completely and therefore could not provide information to Statistics Sweden on yields. There are also reports of high levels of moisture content in the harvested crops, increased frequency of seeds that had started to germinate in the ears and more wildlife damage, due to the delayed harvest.

Larger winter wheat area contributed to the increased total harvest of cereals

More than the half of this year's cereals harvest is winter wheat. The total harvest of winter wheat is estimated at 3 million tonnes this year. This is an increase of 20 percent compared to 2016 and an increase of 31 percent compared with the last five-year average. Winter wheat is the crop with the highest yield per hectare in Sweden, and an increased area of winter wheat has a major impact on the total grain production. Between 2016 and 2017, the winter wheat area increased by 9 percent.

Larger winter rape area contributed to the increased rape and turnip rape harvest

The total rape and turnip rape harvest is estimated to be 383,800 tonnes, 43 percent more than 2016, 19 percent more than the last five-year average and the largest rape and turnip rape harvest since 1990. The increase is mainly due to that the area of winter rape increased to the record high area of 105,540 hectares.

The total harvest of peas decreased

The total production of peas is estimated at 84,200 tonnes, which is 9 percent less than last year. This year's total harvest of field beans is at the same level as last year.

Publication

A more detailed description of this survey and the results for individual crops are published in the Statistical Report, which is available on the Statistics Sweden website at www.scb.se under Agriculture, forestry and fishing and on the Swedish Board of Agriculture website and on the Swedish Board of Agriculture's website www.jordbruksverket.se under Statistics.

Statistical databases

Time series with the final production statistics are available in Statistics Sweden's Statistical Database and in the statistical database of the Swedish Board of Agriculture www.jordbruksverket.se. For some of the crops, there are time series with harvest statistics from 1913.

Next publishing will be

The preliminary statistics published now are based on information from a subsample of 1 106 farms. More accurate results based on the entire sample of 4 425 farms will be published on 14 December in the Statistical Report JO 19 SM 1702. The results will then also be presented on county level and for the eight production areas of agriculture.

Information on autumn sown areas in 2017 will be published on 30 November in JO 18 SM 1701.

Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.

Statistical agency

Swedish Board of Agriculture

Telephone
+46 36 15 50 00
E-mail
statistik@jordbruksverket.se

Producer

SCB, Agriculture and Energy Statistics Unit

Address
701 89 Örebro

Enquiries

Gerda Ländell

Telephone
+46 10 479 68 07
E-mail
gerda.landell@scb.se