The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has revised its estimates for sunflower production in Ukraine in the 2025/26 marketing year. According to the new forecast, the expected harvest volume has been increased by 500 thousand tons compared to previous estimates. At the same time, the forecast result is still significantly inferior to the previous season.

This was reported by the specialized agricultural publication Latifundist.com with reference to the March report of the American agency. USDA analysts note that the new estimate of sunflower production in Ukraine in the 2025/26 marketing year is 11 million tons.

Thus, the updated forecast is 0.5 million tons higher than the figure published in the previous report of the ministry. However, even with this increase, the expected harvest will be 2 million tons less than in the 2024/25 season, when Ukraine harvested about 13 million tons of sunflower.

Along with the adjustment of the harvest forecast, analysts also updated their estimates for the production of processed products. According to their calculations, in the 2025/26 marketing year, sunflower oil production in Ukraine could reach 4.73 million tons.

This figure is 0.2 million tons higher than the previous USDA estimate. However, even after the revision, it remains lower than the result of the previous season: in the 2024/25 marketing year, sunflower oil production was approximately 5.29 million tons.

A similar situation is observed with regard to sunflower meal. According to new calculations, its production could amount to 4.54 million tons, which is 0.2 million tons more than the previous forecast. This is 0.54 million tonnes less than the 2024/25 season, when 5.08 million tonnes were produced.

The USDA report also noted that global oilseed production figures were raised in March. The main reason was the increase in sunflower seed production forecasts in Ukraine and Argentina, despite the simultaneous reduction in soybean production estimates in these countries.