Average grain crops last year

Norway's total grain crop amounted to 1.30 million tonnes last year, down four per cent from the year before, but still an average harvest calculated per decare. The amount of land used to grow grain is, however, diminishing, and has dropped by 10 per cent since 1991.

Altogether 259,000 tonnes of wheat, 661,000 tonnes of barley and 364,000 tonnes of oats were harvested in 1997. Most grain is grown in Eastern Norway, in Østfold, Akershus and Hedmark. These counties accounted for altogether 57 per cent of Norway's grain-producing land and 58 per cent of the yield in 1997.

The wheat yield was on a par with 1997, with 436 kilos per decare. Østfold is the main wheat-growing county, with 175,000 decares (1 decare = 0.2471 acre), while Vestfold and Akershus also have relatively large wheat production areas. In recent years there has been a significant decline in the amount of land used to grow winter wheat, while there has been a modest increase in the spring wheat acreage.

New Statistics

Area and production of grain, 1997.
Statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Agricultural Statistics. For more information; contact: Ragnhild Bruholt, tel. +47 62 88 51 86, e-mail: rab@ssb.no, or Berit Bjørlo, tel. +47 62 88 55 07, e-mail: bbj@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 8, 1998