Sunflower harvest forecasts in Russia are falling, but prices are practically not growing, as they follow world prices.
The situation with sunflower this season in Russia is alarming.
At the moment, almost all analysts have lowered their forecasts.
For example, ProZerno lowered its forecast from 15.6 to 15 million tons, excluding new regions.
The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies also lowered its forecast from 16 million tons to 15.4 million tons. This is significantly worse than last year’s result — 17.25 million tons.
At the same time, experts warn that there is a risk of an even greater reduction in the harvest, because many regions of the country are currently experiencing problems with sunflower growth.
And this applies even to the most important regions, from which the lion’s share of the harvest traditionally comes, for example, Kuban, Rostov and Stavropol regions. In
the central part of Russia, harvesting has only just begun, but even there the situation is generally worse than it was a year ago.
The Volga region is also not encouraging, because due to the rather late sowing associated with May frosts and unfavorable weather conditions, the vegetation of plants is slow in the future, there is a risk that they will simply not be ready for harvesting at the time when it needs to be started.
In addition to the amount of harvested crops, there may also be questions about their quality, experts note.
It is possible that the oil content in the seeds may also fall compared to last year.
As for sunflower prices, it would seem that they should grow in the conditions of a supply deficit, which may arise due to a possible crop failure.
However, the fact is that domestic prices for sunflower in Russia, like for oil, are mainly formed based on world prices.
And they are currently almost not growing. By the way, the carryover stocks of farmers are also decreasing compared to last year.
In this regard, a disadvantageous situation is created for farmers when prices are low, and the harvest is too.
True, due to the awareness of the risks involved, many processing plants have already begun to actively purchase sunflower seeds, thereby raising prices.
At the same time, some producers are in no hurry to part with their stocks, since they are obviously expecting an even higher price.
However, the growth of the purchase price of sunflower seeds at oil extraction plants is limited by the maximum price for oil, which is largely controlled by the state, so it is unlikely that the growth of prices on the domestic Russian market will continue for too long and lead to some exorbitant levels.
