Poland grain production in 2009 is expected to total about 26.5 million tonnes, almost 5 percent down from a year ago, an analyst from a government institute said on Thursday. "The area sown is slightly smaller... and the average yield will be lower due to delayed sowings of summer grains and insufficient humidity so far," Wieslaw Lopaciuk, an analyst from the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economy, told Reuters.
Lopaciuk estimates the area sown in the 2008/2009 season to come in at 8.52 million hectares, with the average yield at 3.11 tonnes per hectare. In 2008 Poland grain output came in at 27.7 million tonnes, with the average yield of 3.22 tones per hectare, and the area sown of 8.6 million hectares. The analyst said he expected the wheat crop to reach 8.5 million tonnes, its average yield to come in at 3.8 tonnes per hectare and the area sown at 2.24 million hectares.
"The area sown with wheat is a touch lower because where it was possible producers changed to planting rapeseed," he said. Last year, when the time came to decide what to sow, producers favoured rapeseed over grains due to very low prices of the latter, Lopaciuk added. The Polish Grain Chamber, a leading grain producers' group estimates 2009 grain production to reach about 27 million tonnes, with the average yield at 3.2 tonnes per hectare and the area sown at 8.5 million hectares.