Sunflower is the only basic agricultural product that puts Romania in the lead among the 28 EU economies.
The sunflower harvest will bring farmers EUR600 million revenue. This is one of the most profitable crops for local farmers, generating profit margins of up to 25%. Each hectare of sunflower yields EUR600 revenue and up to EUR200 gross profit on average.
“The sunflower results are barely enough for survival, because it is not a cheap crop and prices are really low now,” says Cristian Cernodolea, manager of Delta-Rom Agriculture, which makes EUR11 million revenue a year from a 13,000-hectare farm.
September is when the real race for buying and delivering sunflower starts, as most of the stocks of this commodity are sold in a very short period of time because farmers prefer to keep their storage space free for the corn harvest. Within only one month, traders and processors will compete over sunflower to export or get it to plants for processing.
The entire region is a key area for the European sunflower business considering Bulgaria (1.6 million tons) and Hungary (1.4 million tons) are also among the top five EU producers.
At least half of the sunflower harvest is exported as raw commodity every season. Romania’s biggest markets are France (390,000 tons), Netherlands (382,000 tons), Pakistan (370,000 tons), Turkey (300,000 tons) and Portugal (260,000 tons).
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)