Crop consultancy Strategie Grains expects the area sown with rapeseed in the European Union (EU) for the 2016 crop to rise slightly from the previous year, helped mainly by better price margins than for soft wheat at sowing time. In its first estimate for the 2016/17 marketing season, Strategie Grains put the harvestable area in the EU at 6.5 million hectares, up from 6.4 million hectares in 2015/16.
“Globally, conditions for sowing rapeseed have been good in Europe. Despite some rain at the end of August beginning of September sowing finished by mid-September in good conditions in France, United Kingdom and Germany,” Strategie Grains said in a monthly report. Conditions were also good in Hungary but dryer conditions in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria limited sowings, it said. However, rainfall that followed would result in better conditions for early growth, it said.
The EU sunflower area would remain stable at 4.2 million hectares, Strategie Grains estimated. For soybeans, the area in 2015/16 would rise for a fifth season in a row, the consultancy said, pegging it at 900,000 hectares for 2016/17 from 800,000 in 2015/16 and 600,000 in 2014/15. Strategie Grains said its forecasts were likely to change in line with sowing conditions to come.
