Cereals

• In 2005, 417,000 hectares of cereals were grown in Scotland.
• 298,000 hectares of barley were grown and nearly 96,000 hectares of wheat.
• 2 million tonnes of barley were produced worth £117 million and 906,000 tonnes of wheat worth over £56 million.
• 10,600 holdings grew cereals. One quarter of these farms grew more than two-thirds of the crop area.
• More than 12% of the UK cereal area was grown in Scotland. The UK is the third largest cereal producer in the EU after France and Germany.

The main cereal crop in Scotland is barley and in 2005, 28% of the UK’s barley area was in Scotland. 34% of it goes into malting. 54% goes for animal feed. There are two types of barley: winter barley is sown in the autumn and spring barley is sown in March or April. 80% of the Scottish crop is spring barley. Milling wheats grown in Scotland are mainly used for biscuit making. Wheat is also used in distilling and for animal feed.

Cereal farms are concentrated in the east of the country where the best quality land tends to be found. On average these farms have more than half their land in cereals. Many of these farms have put increased emphasis on the matching of inputs to crop requirements and 85% of the crop is marketed through Scottish Quality Cereals, Scotland's quality assurance scheme.

To learn more about cereal production in Scotland, you can visit www.sqcereals.co.uk

Barley is an essential ingredient of both whisky and beer while wheat and oats can be found in cereals, bread and biscuits.