Larger area planted with rapeseed for Germany’s 2020 crop

In Germany, UFOP reports that the area planted in Germany with rapeseed for the 2020 crop year will probably be larger than previously expected, according to the German Federal Statistical Office’s recent estimate. The expansion will also be reflected in harvest figures.

In its most recent estimate, the German Federal Statistical Office put the German winter rapeseed area for the 2020 harvest at 954,200 hectares. This means that the area is slightly larger than previously projected and exceeds the previous year’s hectarage by 12 per cent. However, production is still lower than average. According to investigations conducted by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (mbH), difficult conditions at the time of sowing in the autumn of 2019 and unfavourable weather conditions in some parts of the country in spring 2020 forced some farmers either to decide against growing rapeseed or plough up planted land. In several German states, the rapeseed area was expanded significantly compared to the previous year. Hesse showed the largest increase in area. About 46,000 hectares were planted with winter rapeseed for the 2020 crop year in this state. This was up just less than 70 per cent from the previous year. In Saxony-Anhalt, the rapeseed area was expanded just under 40 per cent to 101,000 hectares. Farmers in Thuringia and Brandenburg planted 99,000 hectares and 78,000 hectares respectively with rapeseed, which was an increase of around 29 per cent. In both Baden-Wuerttemberg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the winter rapeseed area grew 7 per cent. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland Palatinate and Saxony, the expansion amounted to approximately 5 per cent.

With a rapeseed area of 179,000 hectares, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania ranked first among Germany’s rapeseed-producing states. Saxony followed in second place, as it did in 2019, with 102,000 hectares.