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Sunflower seeds: COCERAL raises production estimate

May 22, 2019 at 3:27 PM , Der AUDITOR
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BRUSSELS. Yesterday, Tuesday, the cereal and oilseed association COCERAL published its updated crop forecasts for the Europe-wide sunflower seed production.

More sunflower seeds than expected
Across Europe, sunflower seeds are expected to be cultivated on 4.77 million ha, an increase of 4.7% over the previous year. The average yield, on the other hand, is expected to decline by 7% to 22.5 mt/ha.

Compared to the March forecast, COCERAL has revised its estimate for the 2019/20 sunflower seed crop upwards. In the coming season, 11.03 million mt of sunflower seeds are to be harvested throughout Europe. Although this forecast is 1.6% above the March figure (10.86 million mt), it is still 2.4% below the previous year's result (2018 crop: 11.3 million mt).

For countries such as Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, which were blessed with an above-average yield per hectare last year, is currently still an average yield applied, which nevertheless causes a smaller crop despite similar or even larger growing areas.

The French sunflower seed crop, on the other hand, did not benefit from the weather at all last summer. In addition to a larger area, a higher yield than in the previous year can therefore currently be expected. This enables COCERAL to predict a possible production increase of 25%. 

Sunflower seed production Europe in 1,000 mt

Country

2018

2019*

Diff.

Romania

2.888

2.588

-10,4%

Hungary

1.836

1.814

-1,2%

Bulgaria

1.979

1.833

-7,4%

France

1.249

1.563

25,1%

Moldova

784

800

2,0%

Spain

906

790

-12,8%

Serbia

713

634

-11,1%

Italy

242

250

3,3%

Greece

198

250

26,3%

Slovakia

195

197

1,0%

Others

305

308

1,0%

Total

11.295

11.027

-2,4%

Source: COCERAL; USDA *estimate May 2019

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