The Commission now estimates production of common wheat, or soft wheat, this season at 114.6 million tonnes, down from 116.1 million predicted a month ago and nine per cent below last year’s crop.

It is also the lowest volume since 2012/13, bringing the Commission into line with other recent forecasts of the EU’s main cereal crop.

The EU harvest has been dented in particular by the smallest crop in France in 40 years, as well as a sharp fall in German production as the bloc’s two biggest wheat growers endured repeated heavy rain in the past year.

In monthly supply and demand data, the Commission increased its projection of EU soft wheat imports in 2024/25 by one million tonnes to seven million but left unchanged its soft wheat export forecast for this season at 26 million tonnes.

It lowered its forecast for 2024/25 usable production of maize in the EU to 60.1 million tonnes from 61.6 million in late August, now four per cent below last season’s level.

Maize crops, harvesting of which is under way, have been hurt by summer drought and heatwaves in the east of the bloc.

Estimated EU barley production in 2024/25 was also revised down, to 50.4 million tonnes from 51.3 million a month ago, though that was six per cent above last year’s drought-hit crop.

In oilseeds, the Commission lowered its estimate of the bloc’s rapeseed output this season to 17.2 million tonnes from 18.0 million, nearly 13 per cent below last year’s level.

For sunflower seed, which has also suffered from drought in eastern Europe, the Commission cut its production forecast to 9.5 million tonnes from 9.9 million, three per cent below the previous crop.

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“I’ve heard good comments from some in the industry that the sunflower crop looks pretty good this year,” Lange said, noting Manitoba yields were estimated at 2,500 to 2,800 pounds per acre.

Earlier this fall, those yields came in at 2,000 to 2,400 lbs./ac., which was better than the forecast for 1,990 from Statistics Canada.

“Before the snow about three weeks ago, we still had a little way to go,” Lange said of the provincial sunflower harvest. “Most parts of the central region were finished up. There was still some to go in the eastern region, up in the Interlake, and the southwest.”

When Manitoba Agriculture published it last crop report of 2023, on Oct. 24, it listed the sunflower harvest at 58 per cent complete provincewide. At that time, 80 per cent of sunflowers in the central region had been combined with 60 per cent each in the eastern and Interlake regions, while 35 per cent was harvested in the southwest.

With decent weather lately for southern Manitoba, Lange placed the sunflower harvest at around 95 per cent complete, the Interlake still somewhat behind.

“They were delayed moreso from other crops. Trying to get some canola off, some of the late cereals, and finishing up the corn,” he said.

Morgan Cott, agronomy extension specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance, said some growers might leave part of their sunflower crop in the field over winter, then combine it in the spring.

“They’re dried down enough,” she said, noting at this point it doesn’t matter if the sunflowers are still in the field or stored in grain bins.

“As long there hasn’t been some weird incident where it wasn’t dry enough with the first frost,” Cott added, stating that some moisture in sunflowers during a September frost could lead to issues later.

StatCan in September forecast 77,700 tonnes of sunflowers to be produced in Canada in 2023-24. However, the crop alliance said that could reach upward to 85,000 to 90,000 tonnes, given improved yields.

Manitoba grows nearly all of Canada’s sunflowers, producing 95.6 per cent of Canada’s crop in 2023, with the remainder this year grown in Alberta, according to StatCan.

Total sunflower output in 2022 came in at 84,054 tonnes, a far distance from the record sunflower crop of 217,800 tonnes in 1979.

StatCan is set to publish its survey-based production report on Dec. 4.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Out of the 88,000 acres planted for sunflowers across Canada, 77,000 of them are in Manitoba, according to Statistics Canada’s (StatCan) principal field crop acreage estimates released June 28. Both figures represent the fewest number of acres devoted to the oilseed since 2019.

Jody Locke, a Winkler, Man.-based product group manager for Scoular Canada, said more confection acres were planted this year compared to last year, despite being at the expense of black oil sunflowers.

“Overall, the acres are still good. The plants have emerged; they are waist-high and looking pretty strong. I think they could use some moisture, but overall at this point, they are doing well,” she said.

According to the Manitoba government’s weekly crop report, released July 4, sunflowers were in the R1 and R2 stages (early bud), showing rapid growth and are in “good to excellent condition.”

“We’ve had some timely rains that have helped. There are small pockets where the lack of rain is definitely hurting,” Locke added. “But sunflowers will go deep to find water. So far, it hasn’t been an issue, but we could use some more rains.”

Locke also said there are no widespread insect or weed problems in sunflower fields at the moment.

Demand remains strong for both confection and black oil sunflowers despite being down compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Locke, who expects high demand to continue next year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) projects world sunflower seed production to be 54.01 million tonnes for 2023-24, compared to 51.66 million in the previous year. Worldwide crush is projected at 49.52 million tonnes, down slightly from 49.74 million in 2022-23. Ending stocks will decline 790,000 tonnes to 3.94 million.

While Ukraine will see its sunflower seed production drop 86,000 tonnes to 4.902 million in 2023-24, Locke said the situation there will have little effect on Canadian markets.

“(The war in Ukraine) has affected markets not as much as we had anticipated,” she said. “They export a lot of oil. In terms of what we do with sunflowers, it hasn’t had a large impact on us.”

Locke added prices have come down since the start of 2023 to five-year averages, with Canadian black oil sunflower seeds selling for 26-32 cents/lb., while confection seeds are selling for 47-50 cents/lb.

Plenty of moisture is needed for a good sunflower crop this year, according to Locke, as well as heat to let the seeds fill out.

“It’s going to be a combination and like every other crop, it needs some wet and some hot,” she said.

— Adam Peleshaty reports for MarketsFarm from Stonewall, Man.

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Ukraine is a major global grower and exporter of wheat, corn, sunflower and sunflower oil, but its production has fallen sharply since the war start in February 2022.

“According to the modelling results, some of the sectors will not reach the pre-war levels even after seven years of peace,” Kyiv School of Economics said in a report.

It said the sunflower, barley and wheat sectors were expected to recover by 2040, while the maize, rye, oats and rapeseed sectors were expected to recover by 2050.

“This means that it may take as long as 20 years for Ukraine to regain its strength in agriculture after the devastation brought by the Russian military assault,” it said.

Ukraine harvested 106 million tonnes of grain and oilseed in 2021 before the invasion, but output could decrease to around 65 million tonnes in 2023, the agriculture ministry has said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Pavel Polityuk.

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The USDA post from the South American country pegged the soybean crop at only 36 million tonnes, which would be 9.5 million tonnes below USDA’s current official projection.

While recent rains will help yields to some extent, the attaché noted more precipitation will be needed in February for a substantial recovery.

“Early planted soybeans will see substantially lower yields than normal,” according to the attaché report, adding “late-planted soybeans still have time to recover if rains improve, but the extent of late planting will likely place a ceiling on yields even in areas where drought and heat conditions moderate.”

Argentina’s sunflower production is also expected to be hurt by the dry conditions, with the USDA attaché pegging the crop at four million tonnes. That compares with the USDA’s official estimate of 4.6 million tonnes.

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Corteva will cut 51 positions from a Woodland, California facility, run by its Pioneer Hi-Bred International subsidiary, that supplied Europe and Russia markets, according to California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) data last week.

“Corteva is concluding its plan to stop production and business activities in Russia, and because we have enough sunflower production capacity in Europe for the European market, we no longer need the additional production capacity at the Woodland location,” the company said in an email, without mentioning the number of jobs affected.

Relocating commercial sunflower seed production to Europe for European customers will reduce costs, Corteva added.

The layoffs show ripple effects from corporate decisions to quit Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Corteva said in April it would withdraw from Russia. In September, it announced plans to exit about 35 countries and lay off about five per cent of its global workforce to cut costs.

Woodland, just west of Sacramento, prides itself on its food and agriculture businesses, city spokesman Spencer Bowen said. “We’re obviously sad,” he said about the job losses.

Demand for crops grown with Corteva seeds and chemicals is strong after severe weather and the Ukraine war tightened global supplies. However, agrichemical companies face headwinds from inflation and supply-chain shortages.

In 2021, sunflower seeds accounted for about five per cent of Corteva’s overall US$8.4 billion in seed sales, a company investor presentation showed. The biggest producers and consumers of sunflower seeds are Europe and Russia, the company said.

The Woodland facility is Corteva’s only one in the U.S. making “commercial” sunflower seeds for farmers to grow plants for oil or food.

The facility will continue to produce “parent” seeds for the commercial crop, and is working with a U.S.-based third-party to produce “commercial” sunflower seeds for domestic growers, the company said.

— Reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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European maize (corn) crops endured severe drought and several heatwaves during the crucial summer growth period.

The Commission reduced its estimate of usable production of maize in the EU in 2022-23 to 53.3 million tonnes from 54.9 million a month ago, further confirming the crop will be the smallest since 2007.

In a presentation accompanying the Commission’s data, the EU executive branch said the latest production cut reflected downward revisions to area and/or yield in Romania and to a lesser extent in France.

The Commission increased its EU maize import forecast in the 2022-23 season to 23 million tonnes from the 22 million estimate a month earlier.

EU maize imports have been running at more than double last season’s pace, as buyers have taken advantage of a recovery in shipments from war-torn Ukraine to help cover the shortfall from the EU harvest.

For soft wheat, the EU’s most-produced cereal, the Commission reduced its outlook for exports in 2022-23 to 34 million tonnes against the 36 million forecast a month ago.

Some soft wheat demand was shifted toward livestock feed use, with a one million-tonne increase.

But the lower export forecast together with a one million-tonne upward revision to imports led the Commission to increase its forecast of soft wheat stocks by the end of 2022-23 to 15.5 million tonnes from 13.7 million in October.

In oilseeds, the Commission cut sharply its estimate of the bloc’s sunflower seed crop, which like maize was hurt by torrid summer weather, with production now pegged at 9.3 million tonnes against 10 million previously.

For rapeseed, estimated 2022-23 output was trimmed to 19.4 million tonnes from 19.6 million but remained well above last season’s 17.1 million tonnes.

— Gus Trompiz reports on commodities and agriculture for Reuters from Paris.

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The field is one of dozens of sites growing a genetically modified (GM) wheat strain called HB4, developed by local firm Bioceres and state scientists. Argentina, the world’s No. 6 wheat exporter, gave commercial planting approval to HB4 in 2020. It was the first GM wheat strain in the world to receive such approval.

Why it matters: GM wheat has faced resistance from environmental groups and consumers around the globe.

Its backers say HB4, also modified to tolerate the herbicide glufosinate-ammonium, could help ward off food shortages at a time when climate change has led to severe droughts in China, North America and Europe, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has snarled food supply chains.

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Many environmental and consumer groups have resisted GM wheat, but Bioceres is leading the way in commercializing it.

The firm has gained varying levels of approvals in Brazil, Nigeria, Australia and New Zealand. It is using blockchain and georeferencing to avoid contamination with regular wheat, a risk local farmers fear could prompt import bans.

“There is some ignorance about what transgenic is. It is not a monster,” said Raquel Chan, biochemist and researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, who led development of the strain, now licensed to Bioceres.

She said the plant is “almost indistinguishable” from normal wheat, but it can better tolerate lack of water due to an extra gene edited in from the sunflower plant.

“It’s something that could have happened in nature and has in fact happened in other instances… Normally it takes thousands of years. We just did it faster.”

HB4 could improve crop yields by 20 per cent versus regular wheat under dry and warm conditions, according to a 2020 paper Chana co-authored.

Even with Argentina’s approval, Bioceres has yet to start selling the GM wheat for commercial use in the South American country. It is also testing it in neighbouring Brazil.

Contamination concerns

GM wheat, however, has long been taboo.

“The main concern is the possibility that GM wheat and non-GM wheat could end up mixing,” said Julio Calzada, chief economic analyst at Argentina’s Rosario grains exchange.

“This could spark bans in international markets and Argentina needs these US $4.5 billion in exports. They’re key at such a complicated moment for the country’s economy.”

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No other global seed company has publicly endeavoured to develop GM wheat since 2004, when Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, dropped plans to develop a Roundup Ready wheat.

However, USDA records show BASF, Biogemma USA and Pioneer Hi-Bred International (owned by Corteva) received permits for GM wheat trials in the U.S. in recent years.

BASF said it discontinued the trials in 2019 and Corteva said it does not intend to commercialize wheat from its trials. Biogemma also said it conducted field trials only for research and development while Bayer said it is not working with GM wheat.

Bioceres has said it is trying to get commercial approval from the U.S. and Australian governments for planting HB4 wheat in those countries.

In Indonesia, top buyer of Argentina’s wheat behind Brazil, the head of the wheat flour mills association Ratna Sari Loppies downplayed contamination worries, but said millers there would not yet buy Argentina’s GM wheat to avoid a “negative” impact on their own exports of consumer wheat products.

Brazil, which hopes to boost its own wheat harvest and exports of the grain, appears to have softened its stance. Rubens Barbosa, president of the Brazilian flour millers association Abitrigo, said he believes Brazil might approve HB4 wheat. In 2020 he had threatened to halt wheat imports from Argentina after its government approved Bioceres’ GM wheat. Brazil approved flour made from HB4 wheat in 2021.

“The seeds that will come and be planted in the north of Cerrado will have higher yields,” he said in August, referring to the GM strain. “All of these factors justify optimism related to output and Brazil’s self-sufficiency in wheat production.”

The ‘Messi’ gene

In the Pergamino test fields, Reuters crossed regular farm gates and fences to access the growing area of about 200 acres where the GM wheat strain was planted.

Bioceres said it has taken strong steps to avoid cross-contamination, including using blockchain technology in a “preserved identity production system” to ensure traceability of the HB4 strain.

The crop is audited at planting and harvesting. Planters must georeference in a computer system the areas planted with HB4 and any work done in those fields.

Growers receive financial incentives to ensure compliance and regular inspections are carried out, Bioceres said. Seeds stored in silo bags are monitored until shipment and paperwork documents the chain of custody of the seeds and grain during transport.

Federico Trucco, Bioceres chief executive, said these steps help win over doubters. A new landmark is the recent approval in Nigeria, the only country to fully approve imports of HB4 wheat grains.

He said the firm was pushing in Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as North Africa. In Brazil, consumers and millers were warming up to GM wheat, he added.

“Approvals are happening much faster than anticipated,” Trucco told Reuters in Rosario, where at a nearby laboratory, HB4 wheat was being grown to produce seeds in a specialized greenhouse.

Trucco said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and severe droughts in Europe and China had shifted the needle on drought-tolerant GM wheat. The United Nations has warned that droughts could be the next “pandemic” as global temperatures rise.

Chan, who helped develop HB4, cited Argentine soccer great Lionel Messi to explain how the sunflower gene could help as drought events increase worldwide.

“Wheat has a regulatory protein for response to water stress but it is not as good,” she said. “It’s like the sunflower lends it a good gene. Imagine yourself as a team of soccer players… if you add in Messi to the mix, you will obviously do better.”

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“We are the only processor in Canada producing sunflower oil, and a lot of people are a little bit surprised by that,” said Jason Persall, a fourth-generation farmer. “It’s an opportunity for us.”

Why it matters: Entrepreneurial cash crop farmers like Persall are expanding into food manufacturing for niche markets, including restaurants and consumer packaged goods.

Seventeen years ago, Persall and his wife, Linda, began producing field-to-table extra-virgin artisan gourmet oils made from 100 per cent non-GMO sunflower, soybean and canola grown on their 1,000-acre farm.

[RELATED] Sunflower field raises money for London Health Sciences Centre

In the early days, Persall made sales by knocking on the door of high-end Toronto restaurants to share samples of his locally grown and processed oils. But a well-placed article touting the taste and flavour of his products, as well as a call from British chef and TV personality Nigella Lawson, saw their business take off.  

“We wanted to work deeper into companies with consumer-packaged goods, food manufacturing. We wanted to really broaden our market completely,” Persall said during a recent Farm and Food Care tour.

The farm’s heritage, integrity and purpose-driven business helped accomplish that goal. It’s a win for everyone when a chef can explain the source of an ingredient in a dish, tell the farmer’s story and be confident of its quality and seed-to-table traceability, said Persall.

He developed relationships with food manufacturers before the pandemic, which paid off when restaurant demand dried up. 

“That side of our business (food manufacturing) ramped up like crazy… and picked up all the slack,” he said. “Before the pandemic, we were producing sunflower oil, canola oil, soybean oil, pumpkin seed oil, and just starting work with sesame oil.”

In short order, demand for sunflower oil outshone the others, and Persall modified production to focus solely on that product.

“We just started filling that void of the market demand, and then with the war in Ukraine … the demand on sunflower oil is beyond what we can manage here,” he said. “We’ve been in a demand over supply situation for nearly two years.”

In the next month, Persall will take delivery of six new presses, which were supposed to arrive in June but were delayed due to supply chain issues. Once installed, his 18 presses will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, producing 12,000 to 13,000 litres weekly. Ideally, he’d like to build a new mill to focus specifically on sunflower production and utilize the existing mill for his other niche markets. 

“With a new mill, we’ll be changing our process just a little bit because we need to improve our capacity,” he said. “The mill we’re (considering) at present will improve our capacities by four times. So, it’ll be a big change.”

Persall is working with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and an American company to grow the northernmost acres of sesame to add to the restaurant line-up.

Over the last few years, he has worked with food manufacturing companies to find a market for the oil press byproducts, especially around protein isolation and purification of sunflower protein. 

“Food manufacturers are looking for these types of things to help them improve consumer acceptance of products when it comes to cleaner labels, protein, healthier products, better tasting products and customer experience,” he said.

Building a circular business model is about being sustainable and also about adhering to a biodiversity platform encompassing wildlife, bush, streams and any component directly related to soil. 

“Sustainable is just holding the line. We need to go further than that,” said Persall. “We need to step over the line and put ourselves in growing forward, developing and doing more. We need to be more than sustainable.”

Persall also believes the shift from globalization to more North American or Canadian food demand will continue, especially in the restaurant and food manufacturing industries.

“We’re always working on the next thing. Is (sesame) something that’s going to be on the market for us next year? Likely not,” he said. “It could be three to four years out from that.”

But customers are interested in the oil, the protein byproduct and how it might integrate into their business.

“We’re going to see a rise in quality food products, Canadian-driven food products,” he said.

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One of Ukraine’s largest ports, Mykolaiv halted shipments at the start of the Russian invasion, but Ukraine is pushing to open the port to expand shipments of food under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

“In Mykolaiv, three drones hit an object of industrial infrastructure, where tanks with sunflower oil were ignited,” Mykolaiv mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said.

The attack took place hours before explosions in the capital Kyiv from suspected Iranian-made drones, increasingly used by Russia to attack deep into Ukrainian territory.

The regional emergencies service published photos of huge tanks with flames and smoke rising over them.

Mykolaiv, located near the Russian-occupied Kherson region, has been under constant shelling in recent months. Port terminals have already been hit at least twice — in June and August.

Ukraine is conducting a counteroffensive to try to push Russian troops out of the city of Kherson to the southeast.

— Reporting for Reuters by Pavel Polityuk.

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