Cooperativas Agroalimentarias de España concludes, after its first annual estimate, that the cereal harvest in Spain will be historic in terms of yields with 4.47 tons per hectare. Although the start of the harvest this year is somewhat delayed compared to previous years, especially in the northern part of the territory due to the low temperatures recorded at the end of May and early June, during the coming autumn-winter cereal will reach 22.3 million tons.

This data is especially important for the entire sector at the national level, as Spain is one of the leading consumers of cereals worldwide and depends on international markets. This dependence stems from the need to group and market this product daily to give it an effective outlet. The president of the sector, Juan Carlos Bermejo, has pointed out the challenge of maintaining the balance between supply and demand, avoiding the storage of the product waiting for better times.

Depending on the crop, barley and soft wheat are the main national cereals. So we have barley with a production of 11.55 million tons, soft wheat with 7.26 million, oats with 1.3 million, durum wheat with 894,296, triticale with 852,294 tons and, finally, rye with 457,028 tons. As far as maize is concerned, preliminary data from Cooperatives suggest that they will reach 13.6% of total production, with 3.52 million tonnes.

It is in the northern part of the plateau of the Iberian peninsula where one third of the cereal area is located, Castile and León being the main producing region with an area of 33.6% and 36.5% of the provisional production. Castilla la Mancha follows it with 22.7% of the total and 18.76% of production while Andalusia and Aragon stand out for bringing together almost 100% of the production of durum wheat. Castile and León, Catalonia, Aragon and Extremadura also concentrate most of the maize production.

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