Source: EU Commission
Hungary overtook Romania to become the European Union (EU)’s leading sunflowerseed producer in 2024, according to the latest EU Commission (EC) data reported by Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Plants and Protein (UFOP).
Despite an estimated 13% decline from the previous year, Hungary harvested 1.7M tonnes of sunflowerseeds in 2024.
Meanwhile, Romania dropped from top to fourth position with a production of 1.2M tonnes, a 38% fall compared to 2023. This represented the country’s smallest harvest in 15 years even though it planted a record area of the oilseed, the 6 February report said.
In France, crop development and harvest operations were severely impacted by persistent rainfall, according to research by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft.
With a projected crop of 1.7M tonnes, France was the EU’s second largest producer despite an 18% decrease compared to the previous year.
Overall, the EC slightly reduced its 2024 sunflowerseed production forecast in its February estimate to 8M tonnes – 7,000 tonnes less than expected at the end of December.
The revised estimate increased the year-on-year decline to 18% as a result of unfavourable weather conditions throughout the year significantly reducing yield potential.
In addition, the harvest was 18% down on the long-term average, representing the EU’s smallest sunflowerseed harvest since 2015.
The downward revision was mainly due to a smaller crop in Germany, the report said.
German production was now forecast at 127,000 tonnes, 7,000 tonnes below the December estimate. This represented a 25% drop from 2023, but remained around 20% above the five-year average.
Many farmers had expanded sunflowerseed cultivation significantly in 2022 following the start of the war in Ukraine and the sharp rise in producer prices, but had scaled back production the following year, the report said.