German rapeseed harvest expected to rise 7.5% this year while France, Poland decline

Despite unfavorable weather conditions in Germany, the EU Commission expects the 2021 German rapeseed harvest to be larger than a year earlier. The outlook for France and Poland is quite different.

Since the beginning of March, the weather in Germany has been dominated by large temperature fluctuations. Following a warm weather period at the end of March, the coldest April across Germany in 40 years has slowed plant growth. Nevertheless, winter-planted crops are generally in a good condition. No significant damage has been observed so far. The EU Commission expects the German rapeseed harvest to reach 3.8 million metric tons. This would translate to a 7.5 percent rise year-on-year. By contrast, in France the prolonged period of frost severely affected some of the rapeseed crops that were in flower at the time. Also, drought has prevented a rapid recovery of the crops. According to investigations conducted by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (mbH), the EU Commission lowered the harvest outlook for France by 6 percent from the previous month to 3.1 million tons. This would translate to a 3.2 percent decline on the year. Poland could also see a drop in harvest in 2021. Estimated at 2.7 million tons, the country’s harvest would fall 8 percent short of the previous year’s figure.

The increases expected to occur in Germany, Romania and Hungary will not be able to offset the decreases in other countries. As a result, this year’s EU-27 rapeseed harvest of presumably 16.5 million tons is set to exceed the previous year’s level by only 1 percent while remaining below average overall.