Germany's Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Julia Klöckner, released the 2020 harvest report today. The basis of the report is, in contrast to the harvest forecasts presented above, the actually determined yields of the previously evaluated sample areas of all parts of Germany. Every year several thousand fields are used for this representative performance determination.

Julia Klöckner has stated that "good harvests are our livelihood. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a new awareness of how important it is to insure them: it is about food security. And for our farmers for their income. Average yields. Nationals are better than expected, although slightly below average. There are strong regional fluctuations, depending on soil quality and water supply. For the third year in a row, farmers had to deal mainly with drought, but also increasingly more so with late frosts. This clearly shows once again how crucial further adaptation to climate change is. "

The most important results of the 2020 harvest report:

• The 2020 crop grew back in difficult weather conditions - again there was some damage from extreme weather conditions. Due to the corona pandemic, the harvest was carried out under changing conditions. Labor-intensive specialty crops (vegetables, fruit, wine, and hops) are more affected by this than herbaceous crops.
  
  This year there was weather-related damage, mainly due to late frosts in April and May, a pronounced spring drought, and a regional lack of soil moisture. The heat wave in early August also caused sunburn on fruits and grapes.
  
  For the first preliminary results of the German grain and rapeseed harvest, threshing results from 6,973 grain fields and 939 rapeseed fields across Germany are available. In the so-called late harvest areas, not all areas have yet been cut.

• Cereals: According to the current status, a harvest volume of around 42.9 million tons of cereals is expected, including corn in grain. That's 3.1 percent less than in 2019.
  
  The six-year average, that is, the average for the years 2014 to 2019, is lost by six percent. This development is essentially due to a smaller area under cereal cultivation (-4.7 percent compared to 2019). The almost ten percent decrease in winter wheat acreage had a particularly significant impact, as winter wheat is the most profitable cereal type. Increased cultivation of lower-yielding summer cereals could not compensate for this.
  
  In some parts of Germany, in autumn 2019, especially in October, it was too wet to sow winter cereals. This is one of the reasons for the decrease in area. On the other hand, farmers have expanded the cultivation of field forages (e.g. corn, field grass, alfalfa) due to experience with drought-related forage shortages in recent years. This was also at the expense of the extent to which cash crops were grown.
  
  Once again, there are large regional differences in yields by area. Depending on the quality of the soil and the distribution of precipitation, harvest results differ considerably even on a small scale. The average yield per hectare for all types of cereals, excluding corn in grain, is 69.1 quintals, 1.3 percent more than in 2019.

• Rapeseed: After the collapse of the rapeseed crop the previous year, there is a recovery in this harvest year. The cultivated area has expanded to around 954,200 hectares, although the level of previous years (more than one million hectares) has not been reached again. Yields per hectare are good with 36.8 quintals, but, as with cereals, they show great regional variability.
  
  In total, a harvest of around 3.5 million tonnes of rape can be assumed this year. This is 24.4 percent more than last year, but 20.7 percent less than the six-year average.

• Forages: For the third consecutive year, many farms with livestock once again have serious problems with the supply of forages, mainly due to the drought. Only in a few regions was there enough rain to conserve enough silage and hay for next winter's feed.
  
  In order to help farms in areas affected by persistent drought, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture this year has reopened the possibility for states, when necessary, to allow so-called priority ecological areas to be used as fodder.

• Fruit and vegetables: The fruit and vegetable harvest is almost consistently lower than the previous year. On the one hand, this is due to a loss of income.