- The 2024 harvest is coming to an end, in some regions the grain harvest is almost finished. Extremely fast.
- What was this year's harvest like in the southwestern regions of the country? Unfortunately weak.
Mow and forget
The progress of harvesting varies depending on the region of the country. However, everywhere they start much faster than a year or two ago. In the west and south-west of Poland, the harvest began at record speed and was completed just as early. It's July 23, and in Lower Silesia, for example, the vast majority of grain has already been cut. What was this year's harvest in the region? Unfortunately, the easiest way is to say that they simply existed, because many farmers will want to forget about them as soon as possible.
What crops will there be in harvest 2024?
Let's start with yields. Unfortunately, this season it is below expectations in every category. Both winter and spring cereals yielded less than last year, and the yield reduction was often quite significant. When talking about the harvest, most farmers focus on poor harvests. The results of winter wheat on weaker sites below 5 t/ha, and even within 3 – 4 t/ha, are not surprising to anyone this year. There were a lot of such results in Lower Silesia, the Opole region and southern Greater Poland. Good lands raised the average, but yields were also below their potential. Importantly, wheat yields exceeding 8 t/ha were rarely obtained, even from good sites. Results above 7t/ha this season must be considered very good, especially since it was so difficult to obtain. Cereal harvests are certainly one of the lowest in recent years, at least in southwestern Poland.
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How to prepare a warehouse and grain for storage?
Barley generally performed poorly throughout Poland. But again the most difficult situation was in the southwestern regions. Barley often did not exceed the 4.5 t/ha barrier. Rye and triticale also performed well below expectations, and yet – especially rye – is intended for weaker sites and more difficult conditions. However, rye still allowed for better results than triticale, and wheat-type varieties had it even more difficult.
The same applies to rapeseed, which rarely achieved results above 3.5 t/ha. In relation to this year, it seems that yields above 3 t/ha should be considered really good, because in the region the most common results were below 3 t/ha, and very often even below 2 t/ha.
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How to arrange a straw stack in accordance with the regulations? What distances apply?
Prices in this year's harvest are not a funny joke
It is difficult to even discuss prices, because in the case of cereals they are definitely not attractive, and are even lower than last year. Although consumption wheat was usually valued above PLN 800/t during the entire harvest, there was almost no consumption, which we will discuss in a moment. But let's stop at the price, because in fact it is the most important thing, next to the yield. In no case did prices compensate for low yields. Consumption prices usually ranging from PLN 800 to PLN 860/t are absolutely dramatic. Cereal prices were better almost 20 years ago. Feed wheat prices ranged from PLN 690 to PLN 780/t, with the most common range being PLN 740 to PLN 760/t. And most farmers sold at these prices, because by far the most wheat in southwestern Poland is feed wheat.
The terrible prices also apply to other cereals. Triticale in the range of PLN 590 – 680/t, rye and barley valued in the range of PLN 500 – 600/t (sometimes only in the case of barley a little more, but there were also prices in the range of PLN 450/t) – as the farmers themselves say – a slap in the face in the face. The prices are even worse than last year, when it seemed that… things couldn't get any worse. And yet.
This year's harvest will go down in history as one of the weakest for the southwestern regions. They will certainly not be as weak throughout the country, but even on a Polish scale it will not be a successful harvest, because it is weaker almost everywhere, only the scale of yield reduction is different. And lower yields combined with an even lower price is a very big problem, especially since we are dealing with low prices for the second year in a row.
Less and cheaper, that was good
Of course, sometimes there are better yield results, but at such low prices they only allow for a minimal financial surplus, which in most cases is so low that it does not allow thinking about any investments. Unfortunately, it will take us a long time to return to 2022, which was not ideal at all, because despite high prices, we had high production costs. It turns out, however, that it was still a very good season in relation to 2023-2024. We probably won't see such prices for a very long time (if at all). The problem, however, is that prices in almost all branches of production soared at that time, and farmers' goods dropped to the level of a few or a dozen years ago.
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Cereal prices 2024. What are the market forecasts for the second half of the year?
