ESTONIA (9 February)
Winter cereals have been planted on 33 000 hectares, similar to area planted in the past several years. Winter cereals account for about 13 percent of the total cereal areas. Cereal production had been continuously declining over the past decade but seem to have stabilised over the past couple of years. Prospects are for a similar cereal harvest to last year’s, which was estimated at about 515 000 tonnes. This aggregate included some 150 000 tonnes of wheat, 240 000 tonnes of barley and 40 000 tonnes of rye. Aggregate cereal import requirement for the 2004/05 marketing year is estimated at about 258 000 tonnes including 136 000 tonnes of wheat, 20 000 tonnes of rye and 60 000 tonnes of maize.