Crop production statistics 2024: good oat and pea harvests, poor rye harvest

In 2024, the total cereal harvest produced on Finnish fields was slightly smaller than average at 3.2 million tons. The oat harvest was larger than the barley harvest for the first time in 50 years, with the oat harvest being slightly more than 1.2 million tons, and the barley harvest slightly smaller. The rye harvest of about 43,000 tons in 2024 will only be sufficient for consumption of roughly half a year. The pea harvest was record-high once again.

Last year, the pea harvest exceeded 100,000 tons. Most of it consisted of feed peas at about 90,000 tons. The production of feed peas started to grow rapidly seven years ago – and has increased sevenfold in seven years. At the same time, the food pea harvest has almost doubled. In addition to dried food peas used for human consumption, several thousand tons of fresh and frozen peas are produced in Finland every year.

Oat harvest growing

The oat harvest was a sixth larger than on average. In recent years, oats have been increasingly used as food. This is reflected in the increased use of oats in the domestic industry. The milling of oats is at a record level, approaching 200,000 tons last year. This means that the consumption of oats is already close to wheat.  

“Oat is also a guaranteed export cereal for us. In addition to oat products, 300–400,000 tons of kernels are exported annually,” says Anneli Partala, Senior Statistician at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

Rye harvest covers less than half of demand

The rye harvest was almost half as small as in the previous year. The calculated harvest of about 48,000 tons covers demand for roughly six months of the amount required for Finnish rye bread.  

“As rye stocks are not particularly large at present, there may be a need to import rye before the coming autumn harvest,” Partala says.

Potato harvest has decreased for decades  

Last year’s potato harvest was about 550,000 tons. It should be sufficient until the next harvest. Our potato consumption has decreased over the decades. The largest potato harvest in Finland was recorded in 1948, when nearly two million tons of potatoes were harvested, which was almost four times more than last autumn.

Growth in organic production levelled off

Organic production accounted for approximately four per cent of Finland’s total cereal harvest. Oat is clearly the most produced organic cereal. Its harvest of 91,000 tons makes up most of the total organic cereal harvest of about 140,000 tons. In this year as well, a tenth of our rye harvest, or more than four million kilos, consisted of organic rye.  

 Information for the most recent crop production statistics was obtained in October–December 2024 from roughly 5,100 farms, of which 620 were organic farms. The homepage of the statistics presents more detailed information about the production of all key crops, and the statistics database includes harvest information for the whole country from the 1920s and by the regions of the Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY) from 1999–2022. From 2023, regional information will be published by the regions of Finland. Information about organic production is available from 2006.