Bulgarian sunflower seed crop under weather pressure

In Oct. MARS again revised downwards the EU sunflower seed crop forecasts, mainly due to the deterioration of the forecasts in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia and Italy.

The EU SFS crop was reduced to 8.1 M mt. The increase in area was offset by low yields. The crop is 17% lower than last year.

In Bulgaria, the drought was exacerbated by heavy rainfall at harvesting time. The rapeseed harvest forecast in the EU and Bulgaria remains unchanged.

Bulgaria. Forecast of oilseed harvest, November, 2024/25 MY (UkrAgroConsult estimate)

• SFS – (-18% by 2023);
• Rapeseed – (-15%).

Downwards estimations for 2024/25:

• SFS crushing – (100 K mt less compared to the previous forecast);
• SFS hulling – (less by 40 K mt);
• SFS exports – (100 K mt less).

The peculiarity of the 2024/25 season is that imports will not cover fully the crushers’ demand, as SFS harvest declined in the Black Sea-Danube region due to drought.