USDA forecast for sunflower seeds harvest in Ukraine decreased by 1.5 mln tons

USDA has lowered the forecast for the sunflower seeds crop in Ukraine to 10.5 million tons, the ministry’s December report said. The current forecast for the sunflower crop is 1.5 million tons lower than the previous one. Last year’s harvest, according to USDA estimates, amounted to 13 million tons. Analysts estimate sunflower oil production in Ukraine at 4.5 million tons (-0.7 million tons compared to last year). The forecast for sunflower meal production was 4.3 million tons (-0.7 million tons). The total estimate of world oilseed production increased by 2.25 million tons to 690.26 million tons due to a larger rapeseed harvest in Canada and Australia and peanuts in Nigeria. This fully compensated for the decrease in sunflower seed production in Ukraine and Russia. As of December 4, 93% of the sunflower area in Ukraine had been threshed, with a harvest of 9.04 million tons. Spike Brokers believes that this season, processing has received at least 2 million tons of sunseed, which ...