Serbia will produce 7.7 percent less wheat this year due to lower yields and smaller planting areas, the Statistics Office said.

The country is expected to harvest 1.91 million metric tons of wheat from 482,513 hectares sown with the crop, the Belgrade- based office said. Serbian farmers harvested 2.07 million tons of wheat from 493,006 hectares last year. Yields are expected at 3.96 tons per hectare (2.5 acres), down from 4.2 tons in 2011, the office said.

The landlocked Balkan nation of 7.2 million people typically consumes 1.6 million tons of wheat a year and exports the rest. Wheat and other grains, mainly corn, generated almost 10 percent of exports in the first four months of 2012, up 21 percent from a year earlier.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gordana Filipovic in Belgrade at gfilipovic@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez at jagomez@bloomberg.net