The Netherlands wheat harvest in 2024 is the lowest in 25 years

The Netherlands harvested very little winter wheat last year, but there was a significant increase in flax and industrial hemp.

In the Netherlands, the gross wheat harvest in 2024 was 38.6% lower than a year earlier and amounted to 682 thousand tons. This is the lowest gross harvest in 25 years. The gross yield of consumer potatoes was 1.5% lower than in 2023, and the yield in tons of sugar beets was 3% lower. Meanwhile, onion yields were up 13.2% and barley was harvested 3.8% higher. The final arable yield estimate provided by Statistics Netherlands (CBS) shows that.

“Gross wheat harvests have not been this low since 2000. This is mainly due to disappointing winter wheat yields due to the rainy fall of 2023. In 2024, only 574,000 tons of winter wheat were harvested from Dutch fields, 45.9% less than a year earlier. Both area and yield per hectare have decreased over the past year,” explained analysts at the statistics office.

The gross harvest of spring wheat in 2024 more than doubled to 108 thousand tons. This is mainly due to the doubling of the area. However, the increase in spring wheat area did not compensate for the reduction of winter wheat area. Wheat yields declined in all regions, but the decline was strongest in the southern Netherlands.

For barley, the total gross yield increased. In 2024, the gross harvest was 242 thousand tons. As with wheat, more spring barley and less winter barley was harvested. The gross harvest of spring barley doubled to 151 thousand tons, while winter barley fell by a third to 91 thousand tons. Yields of other cereal crops such as rye, oats and triticale declined in 2024.

Despite a rainy spring and difficult sowing conditions, the gross harvest of onion-seed in 2024 increased to 1.5 million tons. This was mainly due to an increase in area by 11.7%. The yield per hectare was almost 46.7 tons, slightly higher than in 2023.

In 2024, consumer potato yields were 43.3 tons per hectare, down 5.5% from the previous year. Potato growers suffered from a rainy spring, which made it possible to plant some potato plots only in June. In addition, the summer was wet, causing potatoes to not grow well. Although planted area increased by 3.5% last year, the total gross yield of consumer potatoes fell slightly. The Netherlands produced 3.3 million tons of consumer potatoes last year.

Harvest of bast crops increased in 2024, although flax and industrial hemp only take a small share of the total gross harvest of arable crops. However, production growth amounted to 88.2%. Both sown areas and yields per hectare of flax and hemp increased. Compared to 2010, gross yields of spinning crops almost tripled.

Tags: wheat, Netherlands, potato, hemp