ZAGREB, July 8, 2020 - The harvest of cool-season cereals -- wheat and barley -- as well as is in full swing in eastern Croatia and is likely to be completed in the next two weeks, the Osijek-Baranja County chamber of commerce said on Wednesday.

This year's wheat yield is likely to be higher than last year, going from 6-5 tonnes per hectare in small farms to 10.5 tonnes per hectare in fields cultivated by big agribusinesses.

The chamber's officials said that the county's yield is about 10 percent higher in comparison to 2019.

The price of wheat is likely to be 0.90-1.20 kuna per kilogram in the wholesale buy-up, depending on the quality of the crop. Under the regulations adopted for quality parameters, wheat is graded in five categories from premium to quality No. 4 as the lowest, according to test weight, the content of foreign material, protein content, and so on.

Last autumn, wheat was cultivated on 138,000 hectares in Croatia, of which 45,000 were in Osijek-Baranja County.

As far as barley is concerned, the total area sown with this culture was 57,000. The average yield is forecast at six tonnes per hectare.

The total area of rapeseed was 38,000, and its yield is likely to be lower by 10% than last year when it was 3 tonnes per hectare. The purchase price has been set at HRK 2.45-2.55 per kilogram.

A labourer can earn around 160 kunas for eight hours of harvesting. Wine growers wonder if the job is too arduous, the money too little or have all the labourers emigrated

A kilogram of wheat gives 70 to 80 decagrams of flour, around 60 decagrams goes into a kilo of bread. At the same time the price of bread in Croatia has reached nearly 10 Kuna, elsewhere in Europe even more. But in European markets this most important grain sells for 5 to 10 percent higher than in Croatia