Corn Yields Drop 60 Percent, Sunflower Sold Below Cost

Corn yields in Vojvodina are down 50 to 60 percent from average years, and sunflower yields are down 30 to 40 percent, according to estimates from the field as part of this year’s harvest is already underway. Instead of the usual 11 tons of corn per hectare, farmers expect five to six tons at best this year. The gap is similar for sunflower: instead of 3.5 tons per hectare, yields will not top 2.5 tons, and could come in even lower.

The figures were reported to Serbian outlet 021 by Jovan Simeonov, a farmer from Bavaniste in Banat.

“This year, like last year, the drought has significantly damaged all crops in agricultural production, so yields are down: for sunflower somewhere around 30 to 40 percent, and for corn maybe even more, some 50 percent, possibly as much as 60 percent lower than in an average, normal year. I’m not talking about record years,” Simeonov says.

According to him, this is already the second consecutive drought year in Banat, following last year’s.

Why does drought hit corn and soybeans the hardest?

The answer lies in the calendar. Bosko Blagojevic, a full professor at the Department of Water Management at the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Novi Sad, tells N1 that corn’s most sensitive stage of development, flowering, silking and fertilization, falls in mid July and early August, exactly when heat waves have been most intense in recent years.

“Corn and soybeans are at the greatest risk,” Blagojevic says.

Poor fertilization during that window means fewer kernels per ear and weaker grain fill, which directly drags down yield. Soybeans, the professor adds, are just as sensitive to the combination of high temperatures and lack of rainfall between flowering and pod formation, with the weakest yields on record coming in drought years like 2012. Sunflower has a more developed root system and tolerates drought better than corn and soybeans, but it is not immune to extreme conditions either, while vegetable crops are the most sensitive of all because of their shallow roots and heavy water needs.

Blagojevic, who is tracking data from locations where harvest has already begun, sums up the situation in one line.

“Corn, soybean and sunflower yields are not promising,” the professor says.

Sunflower’s price does not even cover production costs

Lower yield is only half the problem. Sunflower’s purchase price in Serbia currently stands at 40 dinars per kilogram, while the lowest production cost, by farmers’ own math, runs about 80,000 dinars per hectare, roughly what a producer will collect at that price.

“At this price, 40 dinars specifically, it simply doesn’t pay off, because the lowest production cost is around 80,000 dinars per hectare, and that’s about what we can expect to earn now at this price. So I don’t see any profit or any way for farmers to survive on that,” Simeonov tells 021.

By his calculation, the price would need to be at least 60 dinars per kilogram for production to be viable at all. Simeonov says sunflower prices in neighboring countries run higher than in Serbia, without giving a specific figure in dinars, and calls on the state to find out where that gap comes from.

“Well, the state could organize a meeting with the oil mills, or look into what the problem is, because the sunflower price in the region, everywhere around us, is higher than here. To see where that difference comes from, who’s pocketing that price gap. And as for the protests, there will be a meeting in Pozarevac, so we’ll see what happens next, because this, a price of 40 dinars, is really unacceptable,” Simeonov says.

While sunflower’s price sits below the cost of producing it, other field crops are trading at a different level on the commodity exchange. Corn is trading at 20.30 dinars per kilogram excluding VAT, wheat at 20.50 dinars, while soybeans averaged 53.10 dinars per kilogram excluding VAT in July. The gap with sunflower shows just how exposed that crop, alongside corn, has been this season to both drought and the market.

Of the two hardest hit crops, corn suffered more, Simeonov confirms from experience on his own field.

“The crop that suffered the most is definitely corn. Sunflower, well, it has a shorter growing season and it did make some use of the rain we got in July, but corn was right in pollination when those plus 40 degree temperatures hit, so it took the biggest hit,” Simeonov explains.

Farmers are announcing a meeting in Pozarevac, where further steps on pricing and procurement will be decided. Simeonov sums up the combination of lower yield and low purchase price in one line about what farming in Serbia actually pays.

“In Serbia, anyone who wants to go into farming expecting to make a profit out of it, forget it. All that’s left is to farm for its own sake. Those of us who got into this out of love, because we love it, because it’s a job that passes down through generations, but to get rich from it too, definitely not,” the farmer from Bavaniste concludes.