A report has officially confirmed what most Yorkshire farmers know - that this year's annual wheat harvest was a disaster.

One of the wettest summers for decades meant that while 7.35 per cent more land was planted out for wheat in the county, yield fell by more than seven per cent, where nationally it rose by two per cent.

The figures were revealed in the annual harvest survey by the National Farmers' Union (NFU), historically the most accurate estimate of the UK's harvest performance.

Paul Temple, chairman of the NFU's regional combinable crops commodity board, who farms at Driffield, said: "It's largely thanks to modern technology that we were able to salvage much of the harvest in terms of quantity

"In previous years we would really have struggled to get anything from such a wet summer, but the real issue we now face is that of quality, which is really low.

"Throughout Europe the harvest has been good, and this will make it even harder for Yorkshire farmers to find a market for their grain - almost all of which is only suitable for animal feed. We now need to carefully track the movement of the cereals market to identify every possible marketing opportunity."

Updated: 11:13 Friday, October 08, 2004