Russia on the path of expanding its sunflower planted area

A bumper sunflower seed crop of 12.7 MMT in 2018 was obtained in Russia owing to a planted area expansion to a record 8.1 Ml ha along with the highest-ever yield of 1.6 MT/ha.

Sunseed crushing in the first four months of the 2018/19 season was behind last year. The trend has been changing since the beginning of the calendar year 2019, monthly sunflower oil output reaches record levels for this time of the year. Total sunflower oil production in MY 2018/19 is expected to hit a record high.

Sunflower seed exports in the 2018/19 season (September-April) was up at 117 KMT against 48 KMT a year earlier. Over 47% was shipped to Customs Union countries (Kazakhstan and Belarus) and some 20% to Turkey. Sunflower oil and meal exports follow the trend in sunflower seed crush.

Sunflower oil exports hit a high of 1634 KMT in September-April 2018/19 (up 1.9% from last year), and they will likely close the season at a record.

As for 2019/20 prospects, UkrAgroConsult expects sunflower acreage will expand to 8.25-8.3 Ml ha despite initial statements about the diversification of crop areas and the Russian Agriculture Ministry’s planting forecast at 7769.9 Th ha. As of June 14, the actual area planted to sunflower was 4.8% larger than declared, at 8.1 Ml ha.

With a yield at the three-year average, Russia will harvest good sunseed crop in 2019.