Sunflower seeds and sunflower seed oil
The four major oils are palm (36.4 million tonnes in 2006/ 07), soybean (35.7 million tonnes), rape (canola, 17.8 million tonnes), and sunflower (10.9 million tonnes). The first three were reviewed earlier this year but sunflower oil was last reported in December 2004, so it is fully time to return to this important oil.
Sunflower oil is interesting in that it is available in three types -none of which is genetically modified. The major fatty acids are saturated (mainly palmitic), oleic, and linoleic which are present at the levels indicated in the following comments. The standard commodity oil is linoleic-rich (11-13, 20-30, 60-70) but there is a valuable oleic-rich variety (9-10, 80-90, 5-9) and US growers have developed a mid-oleic variety (a10, 55-75, 15-35) which is the form most commonly grown in that country. Linolenic acid is virtually absent from all of these which means that sunflower oil can be described as a healthy oil rich in polyunsaturated fatty acid not requiring hydrogenation and with a good shelf life. It is much favoured in Europe as a major component of spreads. In the global statistics discussed below no account is taken of these different varieties and all are included in the figures cited.
Sunflowers have recently been grown on about 23-24 million hectares but the forecast for 2007/08 is lower at 22.9 million hectares. This is reflected in the reduced forecast for seeds and oil in the coming year (Table 1). Sunflower seeds, at close to 30 million tonnes per annum, are grown mainly in Europe, Russia, Ukraine, and Argentina. Seed exports (around 5%) are not significant so crushing is mainly in the countries where the seed is grown and oil at around 10 million tonnes is produced in these same countries. There is more trade in sunflower oil (around 30% of the total oil) with Argentina, Ukraine, and Russia being the largest exporters and Europe and Turkey the largest importers.
Sunflower oil is an important oil in Europe. The seed is grown mainly in France, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Spain. Producers of oil are the same five counties along with Italy and Netherlands and the major sunflower seed oil importers are France, Spain, Netherlands, and Italy. Despite US interest in mid-oleic sunflower oil (Nu-Sun) production and consumption are not large. Over the past five years these have varied between 100 and 300 thousand tonnes.
In most years sunflower seed oil has carried the highest price among the four major vegetable oils but the large demand for rapeseed oil has recently pushed sunflower oil into second place in some months. However the demand for rapeseed oil for biodiesel production has sucked in other oils for food use in place of rapeseed oil and sunflower has