The harvest of basic cereals in the Czech Republic will be 4.7 percent higher this year than last. Farmers will harvest 7.563 million tonnes. There will also be more rapeseed, with the crop increasing by nearly 13% to 1.156 million tonnes.
On the other hand, the potato, sugar beet, poppy, and maize harvests will be lower. This is according to the third harvest estimate published by the Czech Statistical Office (CSO) on Friday.
The total cereal harvest, including maize, will be similar to last year. It will be 8.167 million tonnes, 5% higher than the five-year average.
“Thanks to the expansion of the sown area, more basic cereals have been harvested, while maize will be less,” said Radek Matějka, director of the CSO’s Agriculture and Forestry Statistics Department. Farmers harvested 604,000 tonnes of grain maize, a decrease of nearly 39% year on year.
“As in previous years, grain production is one-third higher than its long-term domestic consumption,” Matějka noted.
Wheat farmers harvested an estimated five million tonnes, a 4.5 percent increase over the previous year. The barley harvest increased by nearly 7% to 1.870 million tonnes. Triticale, a cross between wheat and rye, will also increase by almost 215 000 tonnes. By contrast, oats and rye production will fall slightly.
The cereal harvest is expected to be lower year-on-year. “This year’s potato harvest is complicated by rainy weather. The harvest will be about nine percent lower than last year. The reason for this is the loss of areas and the lower per hectare yield caused by the dry weather during the growing season,” said Dagmar Lhotská from the CSO’s Agriculture and Forestry Statistics Department.
Farmers harvested an estimated 614,000 tonnes of potatoes this year. Sugar beet production fell 11.2 percent year on year to 3.682 million tonnes.
Soybean and sunflower yields will increase due to a significant expansion of the sown area. Soya beans will increase by almost 28 percent to 66 000 tonnes, while sunflowers will increase by around nine percent to 57 000 tonnes.
On the other hand, Poppy will be harvested about a third less than last year due to a drop in the area under cultivation, with production reaching 21 000 tonnes.