February 28, 2025

Increase expected for UK's wheat production this year

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board's (AHDB) Agri-market outlooks for cereals, released on February 24, shows UK wheat production in 2025 is set to rise from 2024 levels.

This is based on production scenarios calculated using AHDB's Early Bird Survey (EBS) and the lowest, average and highest yields from the past five years (2020-2024, Defra).

Production would rise from 2024's 11.1 million tonnes, even under a low yield scenario (2020's 7.0 tonnes/hectare), due to the 5% rebound in the crop area. Using the EBS area and the average yield from 2020-2024 (7.8 t/ha), production could be around 12.5 million tonnes, according to AHDB.

However, anecdotal reports suggest that a slightly higher area of wheat has been planted than reported in the EBS, which is a survey of planting intentions. This is likely due to concerns over the wet start to the autumn and doubts over whether winter plantings would be completed (after the survey had taken place).

As such, AHDB also considered an alternative scenario, adding an additional 5% onto the EBS area estimate. Yet even under this alternative scenario, unless yields are above average, production would still not return to the 2019-2023 average production level of 13.9 million tonnes.

The next few months, as spring drilling progresses and the winter crops develop, will be key for indicating what can be expected yield-wise, AHDB said.

Given a challenging start, achieving the average to five-year maximum yield across the UK would require particularly favourable conditions for the rest of the season, the organisation added.

- AHDB