German compound feed production is stable

For that production of compound feed, in 2023/24 19.2 million tons of commodities were used. Photo: Canva

Feed companies in Germany produced 21.7 million tons of compound feed in the business year from June 2023 till July 2024. In the previous 12 months, production amounted to 21.8 million tons. The number of certified feed producing companies decreased by 12 to 264, the federal information office for agriculture BLZ reports.

Pig feed: The volume of pig feed slightly decreased by just over 100,000 tons to 8.1 million tons. Feed for pigs remains the most important type of feed in Germany, despite a further decrease of the total number of pigs.
Cattle feed: Production amounted to 6.5 million tons which was more or less stable compared to the previous period.
Poultry feed: Showed an increase of almost 2% to 6.3 million tons, making the gap with cattle feed smaller again. 2.3 million tons of all poultry feed was destined for egg-laying flocks, further charts of the BLZ show.

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Compound feed production

For that production of compound feed, in 2023/24 19.2 million tons of commodities were used. Grain was by far the most important component with a share of 48.8%. The total quantity of grain increased slightly from 10.5 million tons in 2022/23 to 10.6 million tons in the reporting period. Of that total volume, almost 3.34 million tons was wheat, 1.86 million tons barley, 1.22 million tons rye and 436,000 tons triticale. Furthermore, feed producers used 5.5 million tons of oil seed meals, which was 2% less y-o-y.

Harvest stats

The German federal statistics office Destatis in Berlin earlier reported its preliminary harvest figures for 2024. The latest estimate for the total production of grain is 34.5 million tons, which would be 9% less than in the previous season. The yield per hectare comes in at 6,55 tons compared to 6.79 tons in 2023. In Germany too, winter wheat shows the largest decrease, with an estimated production of 18.0 million tons or 3.1 million tons less y-o-y. Winter barley is down too, with a total harvest of 8.8 million tons, 8.2% under the figure for 2023, while oil seed rape production is 14.3% lower at 3.6 million tons