Old crop sunflower prices were down 90 cents to $1.10, with new crop down 60 to 90 cents at the crush plants a week ago. Sunflower planting continues in all states and is ahead of last year and equal to or ahead of the five-year averages in Colorado, Minnesota, North and South Dakota. Kansas is slightly behind last year at this same time and the five-year average planting pace.
In the past week, producers made excellent progress and planted an additional 312,200 acres pushing 2023 planted acres to about 393,600 acres. This represents 30% of this year’s projected planted acres and is slightly ahead of the five-year average of 25%.
Last year at this same time only 19% of total projected acres were planted. Drier and warmer than normal weather conditions are forecast for the Dakotas and Minnesota and should allow for good planting progress in the week ahead. According to USDA’s May Oil Crops Outlook report, U.S. production of sunflower seed in 2023-24 is expected to fall as acreage intentions are down 20%. USDA estimates 1.3 million acres of sunflower will be harvested, producing 2.29 billion pounds of seed. Although there are higher beginning seed stocks, supply is projected 444 million pounds lower at just over 3.01 billion pounds. The reduced supply of seed is expected to impact crush volume bird food supplies in the 2023-24 marketing year. Global sunflower production in 2023-24 is forecast to increase 6% from the previous year to 54.3 million metric tons.
