2023-12-02 10:30:12
A At the end of the year, look at your profitability. An adage well known to cereal growers, who must roll the dice again. What to plant in spring? Barley, corn, rapeseed, sunflower, beets…? And in what quantity? You have to know how to bet best at sowing time. Hoping to harvest the most wheat.
Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, the sunflower has regained its place in the sun. In 2022, then in 2023, carpets of golden flowers will strut more widely in the French countryside. On almost 830,000 hectares, more precisely. Not enough to dethrone the rapeseed king and his 1.3 million hectares, just enough to show off. And luck smiled on the sunflower planters. The weather was favorable to him.
As a result, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, France has just harvested its best sunflower harvest this fall since the 1990s, at 2.1 million tonnes. Up almost 20% compared to 2022 and 36% compared to the average of the last five years. The traditional production regions, Occitanie, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Centre-Val de Loire, were the most favored.
Falling price
Good pick for returns. And for the price? Unsurprisingly, the golden flower has not escaped the general slide in oil prices. In 2022, with the explosion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the price of sunflowers lost its compass. It was then trading at more than 1,000 euros per tonne, a historic high. Everyone discovered that Ukraine alone sold more than half of the sunflower oil sold on the planet. The reopening of the Ukrainian tap caused oilseed prices to sink.
“The price of sunflowers went from 600 euros per tonne at sowing time in spring to 420 euros per tonne at harvest”, specifies Arthur Portier, of the Agritel firm, stressing that the good European harvest of 10 million tonnes and the overall correct Ukrainian collection of 12.5 million tonnes weighed on the markets. But rapeseed, wheat and corn have collapsed just as much. So, what agricultural card should we play to win, despite this market beating? The yellow sun card! Sunflower and wheel of fortune…
Arithmetic explanation
Nothing esoteric, though. The explanation is simply arithmetic. Compared to rapeseed or grasses, sunflower is a plant that requires little fertilizer and water, and its shorter cycle requires fewer phytosanitary treatments. The cost of production is reduced. And in this year 2023, even if its price has depreciated, this culture is synonymous with profitability. That’s it.
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