EU sees 1.7 percent rise in 2012

e average yield of the European Union's soft wheat crop should rise 1.7 percent to 5.67 tonnes per hectare in 2012, the European Commission's crop-monitoring unit said in a report on Monday. In its first estimates for the upcoming harvest in the 27-member bloc, the Monitoring Agricultural resources (MARS), a research unit of the European executive, put the EU's average yield for the bloc's total barley crop (winter + spring) in 2012 at 4.41 tonnes per hectare, up 2.6 percent per hectare.
The Commission's unit expected the average yield of the EU's 2012 maize harvest to shed 6.3 percent to 7.03 tonnes per hectare. For sugar beets, MARS estimated the average yield in the bloc at 68.65 tonnes per hectare, down 3.1 percent on 2011.