§ Mr. BellinghamTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what arrangements his Department is making for estimating the size of the cereals harvest in England and Wales in the current year.
§ Mr. MacGregorI made it clear in October last year that, in the light of that year's experience and similar difficulties in 1985, I proposed to give serious consideration as to whether, on balance, we were right to release a harvest estimate before we had the initial results from our farm-based production survey.
30WFollowing discussions between my officials and representatives of the cereals industry, I have now decided to end the late August survey of yields in sample parishes and, weather permitting, to bring forward the more reliable cereal production survey so that its provisional results can be published in the last week of September. Further surveys of the level of cereals production will follow in the course of the year.