Why do farmers grow oilseed rape?
The majority of UK crop growers depend on wheat, barley and oats for their living. These are all part of the Poaceae or grass family, and share many of the same pests and diseases. Growing the same crop (or closely related crops) on the same land year-after-year is known as monoculture, and is generally regarded as bad practice. Therefore, farmers try to introduce plants from a different family at least once into the three-year crop rotation, in order to protect the land from the build-up of pests and diseases. This tends to improve yields and reduces the demand for artificial inputs – particularly pesticides. These crops are known as break crops. For many years, British farmers depended on crops from the Fabaceae (pulse) family, such as peas and field beans, to provide this role. Unfortunately, the vast growth in the amount of soya bean planting in other parts of the world, and the consequent fall in prices, made pulses less-and-less viable for UK farmers, and they had to look elsewhe
