Thirty years of agriculture in Europe. Cereals still the staple crop

More than a quarter of all farming land in the EU-15 is used to grow cereal crops, although there have been lots of changes in the last 30 years. Cereal production was encouraged in the 1970s and peaked at the beginning of the 1980s, before being curbed by the common agricultural policy (CAP). Wheat is still the main crop, but there has been a significant decline in other crops. The cereal that has shown the greatest growth in terms of area under cultivation in the last 25 years is maize with the area used for green maize doubling in size.