Harvest survey launches despite stuttering start
Despite Scotland’ s stopstart harvest continuing to stutter, grain growers have been asked to help collate figures on crop performance to help gauge the sector’s fortunes.
Launching the annual harvest survey yesterday, NFU Scotland combina - blecro pc hair, East Lot hian farmer Willie Thomson said that the heavy rain, wind and damp conditions in some parts had been slowing up both progress with harvest 2020 and preparations for planting crops for harvesting in 2021.
“The figures provided are analysed by NFU Scotland and estimated average yields for different regions in Scotland are shared with Scottish and UK Governments to provide the most accurate harvest forecasts,” said Thomson.
Urging a good response he said that those who had participated in the survey before would be e-mailed a copy of the survey form – and others could either download the questionnaire or complete it online on the union’s website.
“Harvest 2020 has been a frustrating one. There are some areas of the country in top gear, while others are struggling to get out of first gear,” said Thomson.
“While we haven’t properly got going in East Lothian yet, reports from round the country on the harvest seem to be very much like the weather, very variable!”
He said that while some growers were reporting that they were very happy with what they had cut, others had found that the harvest was falling well short of their planned yield and quality projections:
“A settled spell of weather is needed very soon. Not only do we need to clear this year’s harvest, but we need 2021 harvest sowings to start as well.”
Thomson said that one bright spot had been the early indications of good quality in the spring barley harvest:
“Given how important this crop is to Scotland, as the mainstay of our whisky industry, this will be a big relief to many,” he said, adding: The last thing we need is 2020 giving us a kick in the shins over malting barley.”
He said that accurate forecast son size of the 2020 harvest in Scotland and the rest of the UK were invaluable when entering discussions with the Government – and urged all Scottish growers to find time to complete the Union’ s annual harvest survey once harvest was completed.
Policy manager Peter Loggie, who is organising his 27th harvest survey for NFUS added:
“Having accurate figures on the tonnages of cereals and oilseeds grown each year ensures that all parts of the grain trade, including growers, have valuable marketing information about the volume of crop available.”
He said that to do this, the union needed as many surveys returned as possible, adding:
“This year, with respect to the Covid pandemic, we would prefer forms downloaded to be emailed back rather than being posted. All details are on the form along with instructions on how to complete and return it. The deadline for responses this year is 21 September.”