Romania expecting record Wheat and Rapeseed Crops…

By Peter McMeekin

Romania, one of the European Union's biggest grain producers, is expecting a record harvest this year, with abundant spring rainfall and favourable temperatures helping the Black Sea nation rebound from last year's drought-stricken harvest, the worst in ten years.

The recovery in the season’s outlook comes despite a cold spell in early April and lower-than-usual temperatures around mid-May. Rainfall in late May and early June across the major producing regions has set up the country’s winter crops for above-average yields, and it was an ideal boost for the spring-planted paddocks.

Winter crops showed above-average biomass accumulation and were quite advanced by late May, and conditions have only improved for most of the country’s farmers since then. While the April cold spell initially delayed the spring sowing campaign, warmer-than-usual temperatures in subsequent weeks allowed fieldwork to accelerate and compensate for the delay, although sowing was still completed later than last year.

According to the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture, grain production prospects are excellent this year, and it remains optimistic that this year’s winter crop harvest will be the country’s biggest ever. The ministry put the area planted to wheat, rye and triticale at 2.3 million hectares as of May 28. This is significantly higher than the European Commission, which pegged the combined area at 2.13Mha, the lowest since 2012. Assuming the commission has the rye and triticale plantings correct at 80,000 hectares, that puts the ministry’s wheat area at around 2.22Mha.

The rapeseed seeding program in the autumn of 2024 exceeded 700,000 hectares for the first time ever, with the ministry’s current estimate sitting at a record 702,000 hectares. This aligns with the European Commission, which published an area of 703,000 hectares in its late May update.

However, according to the ministry, the scope of the barley plantings has decreased season-on-season to 447,000 hectares. This is significantly lower than the commission, which is calling the area 529,000 hectares, suggesting that the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture may have observed a swing to wheat at the expense of barley.

Romania’s biggest crop by planted area each season is traditionally corn, and the European Commission is expecting this season’s planting program to end up at 2.26 million hectares, on par with last year but 5.8 per cent below the five-year average. However, the corn allocation has gradually decreased over the past 20 years in line with a reduction in the total area planted to cereals. Romania's average corn area in the first five years of this century was just over 3 million hectares.

The European Commission’s science service has increased Romania's wheat yield forecast twice over the past two months to currently sit at 4.97 metric tonne per hectare, up 7.8 per cent compared to last year and 20.9 per cent higher than the 4.11MT/ha average of the past five seasons. Applying this yield to the ministry’s area puts the crop at a tick over 11 million metric tonne, up 18.8 per cent on the 2024 wheat harvest of just 9.29MMT.

Romanian based agribusiness consultant Cezar Gheorghe of AGRIColumn, reportedly put the crop in the 13 to 13.3MMT in an update last Friday, making it the biggest in the country’s history, surpassing the previous record of 11.33MMT set in 2021.

However, Agriculture Minister Florin Barbu reportedly suggested last week that this year’s wheat harvest could be in the 14 to 15MMT range. This implies a yield between 6.31MT/ha and 6.76MT/ha, assuming no upward revision to the planted area. While this is certainly possible should the balance of the season pan out perfectly, it would appear to be quite optimistic at this stage of the crop cycle. According to the European Commission data, the highest average soft wheat yield in Romania prior to this year was the 4.89MT/ha achieved in 2017.

While not providing a forecast, agriculture ministry officials are confident that the improved soil moisture profile and excellent crop condition across most of the country will see the record rapeseed area convert to record production in 2025. The European Commission printed a production forecast of a record 2MMT at the end of May, up from 1.16MMT in 2024 and surpassing the 2023 benchmark of 1.8MMT. This is based on an average yield of 2.81MT/ha, second only to the bumper harvest of 2021 when it finished up at 3.08Mt/ha.

This season’s barley output is expected to be 2.4MMT, according to the European Commission, 10.8 per cent lower than the record 2.7MMT harvest last year. However, should the agriculture ministry’s lower planted area prove correct, that would result in output of a tad over 2MMT, which is still the second biggest crop on record, but only just ahead of 2021.

The European Commission is currently calling corn production 10.1 MMT, based on quite a conservative average yield of 4.48MT/ha. However, this crop outlook is supported by Cezar Gheorghe, who is currently forecasting a harvest of 10.2MMT. Analysts at S&P Global Commodity Insights are slightly more optimistic, expecting the crop to reach 11.4MMT, 90 per cent higher than the 2024 harvest, which the agriculture ministry said was just 6MMT.

While the current weather forecast is favourable, the production outlook good and optimism remains high, Romania’s farmers still require a kind finish to book the big crops on offer. Should they come to fruition, Romania will no doubt prove a worthy competitor to fellow Black Sea exporters in the 2025/26 marketing year.

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