Global rapeseed consumption is rising, according to latest estimates by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported by Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP).
The USDA has raised its estimates for world production and consumption of rapeseed in the current crop year, according to UFOP’s 20 April report.
In its latest report on global supply and demand, the USDA estimated world rapeseed production in the current crop year at around 87.2M tonnes, an increase of 900,000 tonnes compared to its previous forecast. This increase was mainly due to expected production increases in Bangladesh, UFOP wrote.
Rapeseed production in the previous crop year was around 14.5% lower at 74.5M tonnes.
The USDA forecast for the world’s six top rapeseed producing countries remained unchanged, with only marginal upward revisions to estimates for the EU-27 and Russia.
Global rapeseed consumption in the 2022/23 crop year was forecast to reach around 84M tonnes, up 1.6M tonnes compared to the USDA’s March forecast. This would be an increase of 8.4M tonnes on the previous season.
Although global production was forecast higher than the previous month's estimate, end-of-season stocks were expected to be 500,000 tonnes lower than projected in March at 6.2M tonnes, the report said.
According to research by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft, the lower forecast for end-of-season stocks was due to higher processing use and strong world trade in rapeseed.
At the end of the 2021/22 crop year, only 4.1M tonnes of rapeseed were put in storage, the report said.
