UK crop area up 1.9%

The total area of UK crops increased by 1.9 per cent in 2012 to just over 4.0 million hectares, according to the latest National Statistics produced by Defra from the June Survey of Agriculture and Horticulture, released this week.

This is largely as a result of the high prices for cereals and oilseed rape, which led to increases in these crop areas at the expense of less profitable crops such as field beans, peas for harvesting dry and linseed.
 
The area of cereals stands at 2.6 million hectares in 2012, a rise of 2.3 per cent with wheat, barley and oats all increasing in area between 2011 and 2012. The area of oilseed crops increased to a record high of 742 thousand hectares largely as a result of the 7.9 per cent increase in the area of oilseed rape, which now stands at 713 thousand hectares.

The area of land used to grow horticultural crops decreased by 2.3 per cent on 2011 to 149 thousand hectares in 2012.