German rapeseed crops to be expanded by 2.3%

German rapeseed crops will be expanded to 1.1 million hectares in almost all federal states. Only in Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia will the planting area be reduced. This is the result of a forecast published by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), reports the Union for the Promotion of Oilseeds and Grains, founded by the German Farmers’ Association (UFOP).

In its earlier estimate, UFOP had anticipated that winter rapeseed planted area would be 10,000 hectares lower at 1.05 million to 1.09 million hectares. The union cited insufficient price incentives for crop rotation planning as the reason for the reduction in area.

Rapeseed is currently actively used in crop rotation and will be in demand in the future, emphasizes UFOP, referring to the growing demand in the biofuel sector as a result of the loss of palm oil as a feedstock. The demand gap, which will widen by 2030, must be filled by rapeseed or rapeseed oil, “without indirect land use change (ILUC).” The planted area estimate released by the Federal Office is up 2.3% on the previous year and was the second highest winter rapeseed planted area since 2018. A grarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft mbH (AMI) estimates that the expected rapeseed crop will be around 4 million tons.

OleoScope previously reported that EU demand for palm oil continues to decline, with EU requirements to prove no deforestation in supply chains underpinning the decline. Since the beginning of the season, EU countries have imported less than 1.4 million tons of palm oil, which is 16% less than in the same period last year.

Tags: rapeseed, Germany