Last year nearly 25,000 more acres of grain were sown than the year before. That is the first time the area of grain sown has increased in twelve years, and this is considered to be a milestone.
The increase of 0.8 percent is revealed in a recent forecast for this year’s grain harvest from market regulator Norwegian Felleskjøp, the newspaper Nationen writes.
– The total area used for sowing grain has declined each year since 2004, so that there has been an increase this year, is a small milestone. However, it’s too early to tell whether this means the trend of decline in the amount of grain sown is reversed, , says Sindre Flø, manager for market regulation in Norwegian Felleskjøp.
He thinks the development is partly due the market for the sale of grass having been saturated in recent years and that some farmers therefore have returned to grain cultivation.
The prognosis shows that this year’s grain harvest could be at just over 1.2 million tonnes, which is 12 percent more than the average for the last five years.
Last year the amount of crop harvested was 6 percent higher than what is expected to be this year, but that year a lot of the farmers also had a hard time fulfilling the quality requirements. This year is expected to be significantly better.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today ,
