Professor John Robertson OBA

From Cereal and oilseed rape harvest: final estimates – 2025 published yesterday:

• The Scottish cereal harvest achieves a ten-year high in 2025. Total production from the 2025 cereal harvest is around 3.14 million tonnes. A great result for overall production tonnage and a 5% increase compared to 2024.
• Favourable weather conditions in autumn 2024 supported winter crops. Results from the June Agricultural Census show that the total area used to grow winter crops increased 3.6% compared with the five-year average (2020 to 2024). Spring crops experienced more challenging conditions during the sunniest spring and hottest summer on record.
• It is a great year for Scottish wheat production tonnage. Final results see production increasing by 25% from 2024 to 1,030 thousand tonnes in 2025. This is driven by a 10% increase in area and 13% increase in yield. Yield and production achieve a 20-year record high in 2025.
• Winter barley area is similar to the previous year, but record yield drove increases in production in 2025. Total yield increases by 9%, resulting in total production increasing by 11% to 363 thousand tonnes.
• The final estimate of the Scottish spring barley harvest is 1,566 thousand tonnes. Production decreases 6% compared to 2024, as a result of a 2% decrease in area and 4% decrease in yield.
• Oats production increases by 2% to 185 thousand tonnes. A 7% increase in area is driving this small increase in oats production despite a 4% decrease in yield.
• Scottish oilseed rape had a great growing year. Production increases by 15% to 153 thousand tonnes. Final estimates of the oilseed rape harvest show yield at a 20-year record high in 2025, driving high production despite an 11% decrease in area. Overall yield increases by 29% compared to 2024, coming in at 4.7 tonnes per hectare. https://www.gov.scot/publications/cereal-and-oilseed-rape-harvest-final-estimates-2025/

Cereal production is up nearly 10% on the last days of Labour (Table 2 in Supporting Documents).

How many people could survive for a year on a harvest of 3.14 million tonnes of cereal including 1 million tonnes of wheat, 363 thousand tonnes of winter barley, 1 556 tonnes of spring barley and 185 thousand tonnes of oats?

This harvest (≈1.55 million tonnes of cereal, of which 1 million tonnes is wheat) could keep roughly 7.4 to 7.5 million people alive for one full year on a bare-subsistence, mostly grain diet of ≈1,700 kcal per day. https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1999110439687291317

Remember, we’d be adding salmon, seafood, beef, mutton and haggis, then washed down with whisky. The case for independence is now irrefutable.