Analysis of UK farm cropping plans and estimated impact of the wet winter on production

A re-run of the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) ‘early bird survey’ – which asks farmers what their cropping plans are – in March 2024 suggests a marked reduction in many key winter crops such as wheat and barley.

This has led to significant media coverage. For the first time, this analysis estimates what this reduction in key crops is likely to mean for arable production in the UK at harvest 2024.

We project a 17.5% reduction in overall production compared to 2023 for winter wheat, winter barley, spring barley, oats and oilseed rape. This increases to a 21.2% drop off when compared to the 2015-2023 average.

Although the production of spring barley and oats (also spring sown) is forecast to increase by 27% and 23% respectively compared to 2023 due to the larger area of spring crops forecast to be sown this year, this is not enough to offset the 26% reduction in winter wheat production, 33% decline in winter barley and 38% drop off in oilseed rape.

Taken together, we estimate that the decline in production of all five of these arable crops will be around 4m tonnes, from 22.8m tonnes in 2023 down to 18.9m tonnes in 2024.

Table 1 below shows the estimated production for each crop based on the area multiplied by the yield for the same crop in 2020. Table 2 sets out the results compared to harvest 2023, and the average harvest between 2015-2023.