Higher EU demand for rapeseed imports due to reduced harvest

According to the latest forecast by the EU Commission (EC), the EU’s 2024 rapeseed harvest was expected to total approximately 17.2M tonnes, with a rapeseed processing volume of about 23M tonnes.

From the beginning of the 2024/25 crop year and 19 January 2025, EU rapeseed imports totalled 3.4M tonnes, an increase of just over 5% compared to the previous year.

Most imports go to German oil mills, which have a processing capacity of approximately 10M tonnes/year for rapeseed, the 30 January report said.

Accounting for 63% of EU imports, Ukraine remained the key country of origin, with a slight rise in deliveries from 2.1M tonnes the previous year to 2.2M tonnes.

Australia remained the second most important rapeseed supplier to the EU, accounting for almost 26% of EU rapeseed imports and, by mid-January, the country had exported 875,000 tonnes of rapeseed to the bloc.

According to research by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft, this was an increase of around 19% compared to the same period the previous year.

Another wave of imports from Australia would follow in the second half of the crop year, the report said.

Despite remaining at a low level, Canadian deliveries more than tripled compared to the previous year to 144,000 tonnes.

As Canadian farmers grow genetically modified (GM) varieties, the use of rapeseed oil derived from Canadian rapeseed is restricted in the EU with imports from the country mainly used for biofuel production.

Meanwhile, Serbia and Moldova supplied only a fraction of the previous year’s volume.

Tags: Australia, Ukraine, Canada, European Union, Production, rapeseed, imports, Germany