The extremely wet conditions not only massively delayed the harvest of crops in autumn, the sowing of winter cereals was also significantly impaired, so that almost 4% less was drilled than in the previous year. In autumn 2019, farms in Germany sown 952,700 ha of winter rape for the 2020 harvest. As the Federal Statistical Office reports, the area sown is thus almost 12% above the catastrophic result of the previous year. After the acreage in 2019 had dropped to the lowest value since the turn of the millennium due to the drought, the area sown is now increasing again in almost all federal states. However, the level of previous years is far from being reached. Winter cereals were sown on 5.19 million hectares for the 2020 harvest. That is 4% less than in the previous year. In particular, the area sown for winter wheat, the most important cereal in Germany, decreased by 7% to 215.200 ha compared to the 2019 harvest by 215,600 ha. The largest declines were in Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt with over 35,000 ha and in Schleswig-Holstein with 26,500 ha.
ZMP Live Expert Opinion
According to the market, these results seem only partially plausible. The weather conditions did indeed affect sowing, but with regard to the decline in winter wheat acreage, market participants speak of far lower reductions. The figures for winter rape cultivation also cause great unrest. The expansion of rapeseed cultivation is undisputed, but there has been great disagreement about the amount of acreage since the current publication of the Federal Statistical Office.
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