Provisional results from the NFU's 2011 harvest Survey show English wheat has done better than expected, with a national crop of 13.636 million tonnes; higher than the 2010 crop and just 1.5 per cent below the five year average. image expired

UK cropping area was up 3 per cent at 1.822 million hectares. The average yield is 7.5 tonnes per hectare, compared to a five year average of 7.8 t/ha. This is an improvement on the HGCA’s provisional figures released earlier in the week and a vast improvement on fears expressed at the height of the spring drought that yields could be 15 per cent down in the UK.

NFU combinable crops chairman Ian Backhouse said, "Survey responses have pointed to a large variability in yields often linked to soil type and capacity to hold water where a fortunate few benefited from showers of rain this spring. Where sufficient rain fell in June and July onto later maturing crops, yields have been exceptional."

Mr Backhouse went on to explain the vital role CAP payments had for farmers, particularly in the East who did not receive rain in time and whose crops were therefore hard hit by the arid weather. He said 2011 served to "demonstrate the value of the single farm payment in shielding farmers from the extremes of climate and market volatility."

The union will continue to gather Full UK yield results for wheat, barley and oilseed rape crops up until the end of the month; the NFU said its economic team would release information after the results of UK government planting surveys are published.