AGRICULTURE
DuPont ( now DowDuPont ) in 1999 and has been owned by DowDuPont spinoff Corteva Agriscience since 2019 .
In previous years , the lion ’ s share of these seeds would be destined for Ukraine and Russia , which together produce more than half of the world ’ s sunflowers , along with other countries in the former Soviet bloc . Sunflowers in this region are grown primarily for oil , with some bred for confectionary seeds ( the kind you might eat at a baseball game ). Sunflower oil is the primary cooking oil in much of Europe and is also a key ingredient in mass-produced snack foods like potato chips . Ukraine is the largest exporter of sunflower oil in the world , and the sunflower is the country ’ s national flower .
As Ukraine ’ s farms become battlefields and men of working age are conscripted into the military , millions of acres that would have been planted with sunflowers are lying fallow . Bloomberg reported that Ukrainian farmers are expected to plant less than 10 million acres of sunflowers this year , a decrease of more than 40 percent from last year . Meanwhile , Russia has put a quota on sunflower seed and oil exports in response to trade sanctions in order to protect its domestic food supply . Sunflower oil prices , which were already creeping upward before the invasion due to inflation , poor harvests and rising costs of doing business , are continuing to climb in response to this gap in supply .
As of June , sunflower oil was selling for about $ 40 per hundredweight at mills in North Dakota , more than double what it sold for in January 2021 — and the 2021 prices were already record-breaking . Food manufacturers have responded to the price hikes by shifting to other cooking oils like soybean and cottonseed , which has in turn increased the prices of those oils and the seeds that produce them .
The increase in sunflower prices is good news for some American farmers , such as those in North Dakota and Colorado , who produce seeds for oil and have mills nearby to sell to . A modest increase in sunflower acreage is expected in this region among farmers who hope that the elevated prices will continue into next year ’ s harvest season . But Yolo County farmers , further from the final product , expressed less optimism .
“ We ’ ve had a declining market for sunflowers for the last several years ,” says Colin Muller , farm manager of M Three Ranches . The family business farms several thousand acres in Yolo and Sutter counties , including about 500 acres of sunflowers . “ Contract pricing has been rather stagnant , and they ’ re not terribly desirable to grow any longer .”
M Three Ranches ’ sunflower rows are neatly arranged in male-female order , like a line of kindergarteners . “ There ’ s a couple of rows of what we call a male variety that will produce pollen for a female variety adjacent ,” says Muller . “ So you ’ ll see a pattern of , sometimes , six female plants and then two male plants , six female , two male , et cetera .” The pattern allows the farmers to ensure that bees pollinate the female plants with the correct pollen to produce the hybrid that the seed companies want .
Growing hybrid seeds is a precise undertaking with significant inputs , including skilled labor , fertilizer and fuel , all of which have been rapidly increasing in price . Muller estimates his costs have increased between 20 and 30 percent over the past year . The seed
In previous years , Sean Doherty Farms in Yolo County has been home to over 1,000 acres of sunflowers ; this year , Doherty only planted 220 acres .
36 comstocksmag . com | August 2022