Orders are pouring in for Manitoba confectionary sunflower seeds, but marketers and farmers don’t have much to offer them.
Last year’s crop is spoken for and this year’s crop is weeks away from maturity.
“From my customers around the world, I am getting inquiries about seeds with a big, big size because they’re worried they aren’t going to be out there,” said Gabriel Schujman of Roy Legumex.
“Nobody’s going to offer anything until they sit on the beans,” he said, meaning they will wait until the crop is safely in the bin.
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Old crop production contracts have been fulfilled and farmers aren’t sure enough about the new crop to go beyond what they have already contracted because frost is still a major risk.
U.S. confectionary seed production has slumped and Argentine production has been crippled by drought, leaving Canada the only player in the world market this year, Schujman said.
Fred Parnow of Minnesota-based seed company Seeds 2000 said Canadian marketing companies were smart to offer strong prices to farmers in late 2008 and early 2009. That meant farmers would keep growing the crop.
“The Canadian processors were very, very aggressive on acres, starting back in October, compared to the U.S. processor, who was very complacent,” said Parnow. “Now (U.S.) processors are scrambling.”
U.S. buyers offered contract prices of 22-25 cents Cdn per pound, while Canadian processors offered 28 to 32 cents per lb. That resulted in U.S. acreage plummeting as farmers rushed into easier-to-grow soybeans. Most U.S. sunflower production is for oilseed sunflowers and the confection base fell farther this year.
In Canada, acreage did not surge, even with the high contract prices. Schujman said competing crops limited the management-intensive crop’s ability to attract farmers’ attention.
“When canola had good prices, they preferred that,” said Schujman.
“They can make good money at sunflowers, but it’s more risk.”
Sunflowers are a long season crop, generally not harvested until mid-October and November. Once the seeds have matured, the thick shells protect them from weather damage, but until then they are susceptible to serious quality damage.
This year, the crop needs frost-free weather until the end of September to get past the danger.
Confectionary sunflower crops are common in southern Manitoba, but are becoming rare elsewhere. U.S. growers have shifted into oilseed varieties. Eastern European farmers generally grow oilseed sunflowers too.
Syria once was a major exporter, but production has stalled there, according to sunflower market experts, because of regional tensions and conflicts.
“There is not enough production around the world, because it’s a difficult crop, it’s a late crop, you have a lot of risk of frost,” said Schujman.
That gives an opening to marketers like Manitoba’s Roy Legumex, Keystone Grain and others. They also benefit from what many in the sunflower trade say is a resistance overseas to buying U.S. sunflower seeds.
Tensions between the United States and various Middle Eastern nations mean that many buyers are worried that consumers won’t want to buy American sunflower seeds.
“Put the same seed in a bag saying ‘Canadian product’ and you can sell it for a lot more,” said one U.S. sunflower seed marketer.
Canadian seeds tend to be shorter and fatter than American product, Schujman said.
