Sunflower area in Ukraine grew by a quarter in 5 years
Sunflower is widely cultivated by Ukrainian agriproducers due to the crop's high profitability, states Oleksandr Maslak, expert advisor, PhD in Economics, Associate Professor at the Department of Public Administration and Management at Sumy National Agrarian University, AgroTimes writes.
According to him, the production area has expanded by a quarter over the past five years. Last year, sunflowers covered almost 23% of cropland and accounted for more than two-thirds of industrial crops produced in the country.
The average production cost of sunflowers is about 22,000 UAH/ha.
"Given the average sunflower yield of 2.5 t/ha, the cost of 1 t of oilseeds will be about 8.8 thou. UAH. If sunflower is traded at 18 thou. UAH/t, the profit from 1 ha of sunflower will be 23 thou. UAH, which will ensure more than 100% profitability of sunflower," estimates Oleksandr Maslak.
In the 2021 crop year, the sunflower area in Ukraine makes up 6.46 mln ha, slightly above the projected. Sunflower production in 2020 reached 13.1 mln t on 6.4 mln ha.
Sunflowerseed and products export from Ukraine in May stood at 662,000 t.
