The area used for agriculture in the EU covered nearly 180 million hectares in 2015. The largest part (60 %) consisted of arable land. On this arable land, around half was occupied by cereals, the main crop grown in the EU.
The harvested cereal production in the EU amounted to nearly 317 million tonnes, of which common wheat and spelt (48 % of total EU cereal production) was the most significant, followed by barley (19 %), grain maize and corn-cob-mix (19 %), other cereals (mostly triticale, rye and oats) (13 %) and rice (1 %). France (23 % of total EU cereal production), Germany (15 %) and Poland (9 %) together accounted for almost half of total EU cereal production.
France and Germany were the largest producers of wheat and barley and together accounted for 44 % of total wheat and spelt production and 40 % of total barley production in the EU. Other major producers of barley were Spain and the United Kingdom (each 12 %). France was also the largest grain maize producer, accounting for 23 % of total grain maize production in the EU.
Further information is provided in the Statistics Explained article Main annual crop statistics.