5948 - Oilseed Rape (Answered)

Mrs Anne Main
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the amount of oilseed rape produced since December 2013.

George Eustice

The oilseed rape harvest in 2014 saw an increase in UK production of 16% to nearly 2.5 million tonnes following favourable weather conditions during the 2013/14 growing season. This higher production reflects an increase in yield of oilseed rape by 23%. The area sown to oilseed rape in 2014 was 675 thousand hectares, which was nearly 6% lower than that sown in 2013. Full details can be found in the Farming Statistics release which was published on 18 December 2014 on the Defra website.

A recent survey carried out by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) Cereals and Oilseeds team indicates that the area sown to oilseed rape in Great Britain in 2015 has fallen to 627 thousand hectares. Provisional production estimates for the 2015 harvest will be published by Defra in October.