According to Tike’s advance harvest estimates, this year’s grain harvest will reach 4.1 billion kg. The grain crop will fall only slightly short (50 million kg) of the previous year. The bulk of the harvest is feed grain: 2.1 billion kg of barley and 1.1 billion kg of oats. The yield of bread grain – rye and wheat – was lower than in 2007: this year, the rye harvest amounted to 60 million kg and the wheat harvest to 778 million kg. More accurate harvest figures will be available in January 2009, when Tike will publish the final harvest statistics for 2008.

Grain harvest for 2008 is 4.1 billion kg
Cereals were grown on a record large area in Finland in summer 2008. However, this did not produce a record crop, as the growing season had its ups and downs – in particular, rains during the threshing season weakened both quantity and quality. Yields per hectare (kg/ha) were either average or slightly better than average. Nevertheless, the yield level was significantly weaker than the yields per hectare in 2007.

Wheat harvest down 2%
The spring wheat harvest grew by 8% compared with 2007, as the sowing area of spring wheat in Finland was the second largest in the last 40 years. Since the winter wheat harvest declined by 45% on the previous year, the total wheat harvest, 778 million kg, was 2% lower than last year. Our second bread grain, rye, is mainly sown in Finland in the autumn. As was the case with winter wheat, the rye sowing area declined and the harvest, 60 million kg, was 31% lower than in 2007.

Malting barley harvest is a positive exception – harvest grows by 21%
Barley, oats and mixed crops are classified as feed grains in Finland. They account for as much as 80% of the grain harvest. That said, not all of it is used for feed. Hundreds of millions of kilograms of our main cereal, barley, are used industrially for purposes such as malting. The malting barley harvest, 625 million kg, was a positive exception in terms of both quantity and quality. The malting barley harvest was up 21% on the previous year. The total barley harvest amounted to 2.07 billion kg, 4% more than in 2007. On the other hand, the oat harvest declined, with 1.14 billion kg harvested, 7% less than in 2007.

Decline in potato and sugar beet harvest
The year-on-year decline in sugar beet cultivation continued. The sugar beet harvest was down by close to a quarter compared with the previous year, amounting to 514 million kg. On average, the figure is now only half of the Finnish sugar beet harvest in the 1990-2006 period. The potato harvest was 5% lower than in 2007.

Turnip rape harvest down 28%
The turnip rape harvest was the second weakest seen during the 2000s. Although yields per hectare were higher than last year, the decrease in the cultivated area led to a decline of 28% in the total harvest compared with 2007. The rape harvest fell 5% short of the previous year.

This is advance information on the final harvest statistics, which will be published on 29 January 2009. The harvest statistics are based on information provided by growers. The information was gathered by telephone from approximately 5,800 growers. At the time these statistics were prepared, the information of 5,300 growers was available. The harvest area for field crops has been calculated by deducting the known area of crop failure from the cultivated area given by growers in their subsidy applications.

Additional information
Anneli Partala, Researcher, Tel. +358 20 77 21376
Mika Kuoppa-aho, Researcher, Tel. +358 20 77 21366
The format of e-mail addresses is firstname.lastname@mmmtike.fi.