Defra’s first estimates of English cereal and oilseed rape production show the impact of another challenging season.
Total cereals (wheat, barley, oats) output is provisionally down in 2025, with a fall in barley output offsetting a small rise for wheat.
Defra forecasts English wheat production for 2025 at 10.6 Mt, which is a 4.9% increase on the previous season but still well below the ten-year average of 12.9 Mt. Defra puts this down to an 8.8% rise in the cropped area. At 7.0 t/ha, yields were also short of the average.
The 2025 English barley harvest is provisionally estimated at 4.2 million tonnes, a 14% decrease on 2024, driven by a 23% fall in spring barley and a 2.2% decline in winter barley production.
Despite a 9.4% increase in the oat area production fell by 2.3% in 2025, with yields down by 11%.
Defra forecasts wheat straw production to be similar to last season at 2.6 million tonnes. Barley straw production, however, fell in 2025 by 27% to 1.2 million tonnes.
