30.03.2023 (Successful Farming) - PARIS, March 30 (Reuters) - The European Commission expects 2023/2024 oilseed crops to increase by 7% from the previous year to a record 33.6 million tonnes, mainly because of a larger area sown, it said on Thursday.

In its short-term outlook, the EU executive said that attractive prices during the sowing period and mild conditions during winter had boosted the rapeseed area to rise to an expected five-year high of 6 million hectares.

Rapeseed production will rise 1% year on year and be 15% above the five-year average at 19.8 million tonnes, it predicted.

A temporary exemption from the obligation to allocate a part of arable land to fallow land and a possible switch from maize in drought-affected regions could lead to a rise in the sunflower area next season to 4.8 million hectares, up 10% on the five-year average.

Sunflower production, assuming average yields, notably in the drought-affected regions last year, is expected to reach a record 10.9 million tonnes, up 18% year on year.

The area sown with soybeans, which is a smaller oilseed crop in the EU, was seen rising by 6.4% above the five-year average to 1 million hectares.

EU vegetable oil and oilseed meal production is also expected to hit new highs at 17.2 million tonnes for oils and 30.9 million tonnes for meal, the Commission set without giving details.

As a result, EU net imports of these products are forecast to be lower than in 2022/23, it said. (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by David Goodman and Jonathan Oatis)

https://www.agriculture.com/markets/newswire/eu-expects-oilseed-output-to-hit-record-high-in-202324