The yield forecast for cereals is 5 tonnes per hectare across the EU and thus significantly higher than last year and the average over the past five years. The total EU27 area used for cereals in 2008 is estimated to have increased by 5 % compared to 2007, due to a 0 % set-aside rate and high cereals prices.
Looking at individual crop figures across the EU27 over the past five years and as of August 5th 2008, the latest yield forecasts show the following trends:
soft wheat: 5.6 t/ha (+4.8%)
durum wheat: 3.1 t/ha (+12.8%)
barley: 4.4 t/ha (+5.7%)
grain maize: 6.9 t/ha (+9.5%)
rape seed: 2.9 t/ha (-2,1%)
sunflower: 1.6 t/ha (+1.7%)
potato: 26.5 t/ha (-1.1%)
sugar beet: 70.3 t/ha (+19.0%)
The greatest increase is for sugar beet, cultivated mainly in northern Europe, with the main producers Germany and France, which benefited from favourable meteorological conditions, increasing yield forecasts significantly.
Maize yield is expected to be 20.1% higher than last year and 9.5% higher than the past five years' average, with very high yield increases for Romania (+122%), Bulgaria (+193%) and Hungary (+94%), countries that had been suffering from drought last year.
The winter of 2007/2008 was rather mild, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, but cooler than the exceptionally mild winter of 2006/07. Temperatures followed a seasonal course with warmer average temperatures compared to the long term average (period 1975–2007) for Central and Eastern Europe. June and July have been slightly cooler for France, northern Spain and the United Kingdom, representing favorable conditions for still active crops.
Rainfall throughout the season has been abundant and well distributed for Spain but has led to over-wet situations in France and northern Italy. On the other hand, northern Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Denmark experienced a long lasting dry period starting in spring and continuing into June 2008, coupled with some high temperatures. This situation has impacted primarily upon winter crops and led to lower production and local failures.
In spite of heavy rainfall at the end of July in Romania, overall weather conditions for the countries hit by last year's drought have been good.
Analysis of crop yield by crop type and country for the EU27
The total wheat yield is expected to be better than last year with a significant increase of 10.4%. The resulting EU production is expected to be around 141 million tonnes (Mt) which would be an increase of more than 20.9 Mt (+17.4%) from last year.
Compared to the yield average of the last five years (2003 to 2007) an increase of 6.1 % is estimated and in terms of production an increase of 10.2 % for EU 27 .
Durum wheat yields are expected to be higher than the past 5 years' average for the four major producers: Italy (+12.2%), France (+6.3%), Spain (+11.7%) and Greece (+4.3%). When looking at the comparison with 2007: Italy (3.1t/ha) and France (4.9t/ha) show higher figures (+15.0% and +13.9%) but Greece (2.1t/ha) and Spain (2.5t/ha) are very similar to last year yield (+0.3% and -0.7%).
For soft wheat only three countries are foreseen with lower figures than average for Denmark (-1.5%), Slovakia (-0.5%) and The Netherlands (-1.4%). Romania, Bulgaria and Baltic countries are forecasted with more than 10% higher yield than average, this difference is even much higher for Estonia and Portugal (> +24%).
By comparison with 2007 only Poland, Lithuania and Latvia have lower expectations than last year (around -3%) due to unfavourable dry conditions. Spain and Portugal have lower forecasts for 2008 compared to the exceptional 2007 yield (-8.7% and -5.6%). On the other hand, yields for the three main EU producers, whose 2007 harvests were not good, show improvements: France with 7.45t/ha (+16.2%), Germany with 7.33t/ha (+5.2%) and the UKwith 7.96t/ha (+8.3%).
For EU 27 the yield is expected to be higher than last year by 5.0%, reaching 4.4 t/ha. The forecasted production is 63.4 Mt, which corresponds to an increase of 10.3% from last year and 10.5% more than the 5 years average.
Within the four main producing countries, Spain is still contributing the most to the overall positive yield expectations for the last 5 years average with a yield increase of 23.5% (3.4t/ha). Despite the good potential it is still lower than the exceptional 2007 (-6%). Production is summing up to 11.8 Mt.
Germany, as the second barley producer in 2008 expects a yield increase of +1.6% on the average of the last five years and +8.4% to 2007. Production is expected to be 10.9% higher than last year (11.5Mt).
France and United Kingdom are expected to reach much better yield than last disappointing 2007 harvest with respectively 6.5t/ha (+17.4%) and 6.1t/ha (+4.8%). Production has also made progress with +21.7% and +18.7% respectively compared to last year. Romania and Bulgaria are foreseen with much better figures than last 2007 season. They are forecasted with 2.4t/ha (+67%) and 3.3t/ha (+46%) respectively.
The grain maize yield for EU 27 is estimated at 6.9 t/ha. This is a significant increase of 9.5% compared to the five years average. In terms of productions 60 Mt are forecasted. This is an increase of 4% on the five year average.
For the two largest producers France and Italy yield forecasts show a clear increase compared to the five year average with 9.2 t/ha for France (compared to 8.5 t/ha) and with 9.6 t/ha for Italy (compared to 8.9 t/ha). For both countries we do see a slight increase in area compared to last year but below the 5 year average. This leads to a forecasted increase in production for Italy of 7.3% and for France of 2.3% compared to last year.
France is expected to produce 14.4 Mt and Italy is expected to produce 10.5 Mt.
Romania and Hungary as the other two main producers of grain maize experience a good season after the drought in 2007. For Hungary yield expectations are raised by 21 % compared to the five years average and almost doubled compared to last year. The production is estimated at 8.4 Mt.
Production for Romania is forecasted to have more than doubled in 2008 compared to 2007 with a production of 8.7 Mt. The yield forecast is set to 3.5 corresponding to an increase of 3.4 % on the five years average and 123% on last year's yield.
The remaining countries with the exception of Greece are above the five years average.
At EU27 level, an average season is expected: yields are forecasted to be slightly lower than the average (-0.2%) although higher than those of last year (+0.3%).
Among the main producers, forecasts are lower than last year in Spain (7.16 t/ha, -0.9%) and Portugal (5.91 t/ha, -3.0%).
Good potential is shown in Greece, whose yield (8.12 t/ha) is forecasted to be higher both than 2007 and than the average (respectively +4.0% and +4.9%).
A good season is also expected for the eastern countries: 3.81 t/ha for Hungary (+4.2% compared to the last year), 3.62 t/ha for Romania (+3.8%), and 4.91 t/ha for Bulgaria (+5.9%). The latter could have experienced problems during pollens development because of a sudden drop in temperatures.
Favourable conditions for blast disease development have been verified in north eastern Italy.
Analysis of pastures and forage crops for the EU27
The winter was moderately warm with higher than average precipitation over most of the grazing and forage production areas. These conditions supported the development of green biomass and set the conditions for an early first cut. However, the dry period that followed reduced dry matter production over most of northern Europe, Great Britain and Ireland as well as on the Atlantic costal regions of northern France.
In these areas, a delay in the second cut is expected. Overall conditions were more positive in the forage producing areas of central France as well as in the Mediterranean Basin as a whole. In these areas a regularly timed second cut, as well as a regular continuation of the grazing season is expected.
