The harvest in Lithuania has started two to three weeks earlier than usual this year, with the first harvesters hitting the fields in Dzūkija and Suvalkija, and the rest of Lithuania is expected to start moving next week, farmers say. So far, the first crops are being harvested – winter barley and wheat. 

While some farmers say they expect a bumper cereal harvest this year thanks to good weather and favourable fertiliser prices, others are more cautious.  

Lithuanian Union of Young Farmers and Young People's Union leader Vytautas Buivydas says the harvest is record early this year, while Chamber of Agriculture President Arūnas Svitojus says an early start to the harvest was to be expected as both spring and summer started earlier. 

„Almost a month earlier (harvest started – BNS). Varenna is the first to thresh winter barley, which is already ripe. It is dry there. There has been no rain, so it is drying. Dzūkija has already started, while farmers elsewhere are still looking around – it's early days yet, a bit of a trial. I would say it's just a prelude to the harvest. The real harvest has not yet started. It is still a couple of weeks away. The plants still need to mature," Svitojus told BNS.

„If it is this warm next week, the whole of Lithuania will start to move“, – he added.  

Aušrys Macijauskas, chairman of the Lithuanian Association of Cereal Growers, told BNS that the first combine harvesters turned to barley fields in southern Lithuania on 28 June. However, he said, there have been years in the past when the harvest started in the first days of July.

A. Svitoy said that this year the natural conditions are better and better yields can be expected. 

„I am very tentative about predicting that we will exceed last year's harvest. It will not be a worse year, it will be a better year. It could be an all-time record," predicted Mr Svitojus.

Climate conditions were favourable for crop growth this year compared to last year, he said, with both good natural conditions and better other indicators. 

„Last year there was quite a severe drought, the grains did not mature and we did not have such a good harvest, although it was high. There was a lot of acreage, and this year the acreage has not decreased, maybe even increased a little. You drive through the fields in central Lithuania, in Šakiai, towards Kaunas, and you see them (the crops – BNS) turning blue. They have received a lot of fertiliser. It has been somewhat cheaper this year. They got enough moisture in the spring," Svitojus said.

V. Buivydas agrees that the "images of the fields" suggest that the harvest will be "very good", but provided that there is no heavy rain, it will be warm and sunny, then the fields will be able to harvest everything.  

„This year looks set to be one of those years with better yields overall. Not only cereals, but also berries and vegetables. What we are seeing in the fields is really good. The yield potential is very good. The only question is whether the crop will end up in the granaries, because there are fields where the ears are already lying on the ground – if it were not for the rain, the sudden increase in the water level, the wind, they would hold on. If there is still heavy rain, the grain will be "beaten off" or will have become waterlogged. Just because the eyes are happy now doesn't mean that we will be happy with the final result," the farmer told BNS.   

Macijauskas doubts a record harvest: „There will be no records. Forget them. The records have already been achieved. Now they will be hard to beat: fertilisers are expensive, many inputs cannot be used, and the aim is to go green.“  

A. Macijauskas says that winter oilseed rape will be sown as early as the end of July or mid-August.

The Lithuanian Centre for Agrarian and Forestry Sciences' report on this year's harvest forecasts indicates that yields for winter wheat and rye are expected to be close to or even slightly above the long-term average.