Ukraine cuts oilseeds production in 2024 - Ukroliaprom

MOSCOW. Dec 20 (Interfax) - Ukraine produced 21.7 million tonnes of seeds of the main types of oilseed crops in 2024, or 94% of last year's amount, Ukrainian media said, citing the Ukroliaprom industry association.

Experts are forecasting an increase in soybean production this year, alongside a decrease in the sunflower and rapeseed harvest.

Ukroliaprom estimates soybean harvest at 6.1 million tonnes in 2024, up 28% from the year before. It explains the growth with a 46.6% increase in production areas to 2.66 million hectares, while the yield of oilseeds decreased by 11.2% to 23 centners per hectare.

Sunflower production is estimated at 12 million tonnes in the current season, versus 13.9 million tonnes in the 2023/2024 marketing year (July 2023 - June 2024), which is a 14% decrease. The oilseed yield has preliminarily decreased by 7.8%, to 22.6 centners per hectare, with a 5.4% decline in production area to 5.3 million hectares.

As for rapeseed, Ukroliaprom estimates its yield at 3.6 million tonnes against 4.4 million tonnes in the previous season. It was harvested from almost 1.26 million hectares (-11.2%) with a yield of 28.4 centers per hectare (-2.7%).

At the same time, Ukroliaprom notes traditional differences between official information on the harvesting of grain and oilseeds in Ukraine and market expert estimates in terms of possible production of sunflower seeds. Thus, with an area of 5.004 million hectares and a yield of 21 centners per hectare, official reports estimate sunflower seed production at 10.5 million - 11.0 million tonnes, which differs significantly from a number of expert estimates.

"Such differences recur almost every year. Marketing year results and the actual exports of oils, including sunflower oil, make it possible to confirm much bigger volumes of oilseeds (mostly, sunflower oil) that the official estimates," Ukroliaprom said.