Sunflower output booms in U.S.

Press, 9 April 1980, Page 4

Sunflower output booms in U.S.

NZPA-Reuter Chicago

A bright yellow flower that grows up to two metres tall has become an important new link in the food chain of the diet-con-scious Western world. The secret of the sunflower is the edible oil made from its seeds. It contains no cholesterol and has a high content of polyunsaturated fats which doctors say lessen the risk of heart disease.

As a result, an increasing number of brand margarines, vegetable and salad oils based on sunflower oil have been appearing on supermarket' shelves.

The flower’s significance gained new recognition when the United States Government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (C.F.T.C.) unanimously approved a new sunflower seed futures contract, to be traded on the Minneapolis grain exchange. Farmers and processors will not be able to protect themselves from market fluctuations by taking out contracts for future delivery at guaranteed prices. The speculators, already making and losing money by trying to guess future price trends in a long list of commodities, will have one more product to gamble on.

The Soviet Union is the world’s largest sunflower seed producer with an expected output of 5.3 million tonnes this year. But the big growth area has been the United States where production has risen from practically nothing three years ago to 3.6 million tonnes this year.

“It is an important new weapon in the arsenal of the American farmer,” said Mr Don Lilleboe of the Sunflower Association, based in Fargo, North. Dakota, where more than half the American crop is grown.

“It is resistant to drought and cold and less susceptible to weather damage than wheat,” he said. Farmers have also been making up to $155 an acre from sunflower, compared with $135 for wheat, statistics show. Although the United States has been the leader in the diet and health craze sweeping the, developed countries, about 85 per cent* of its production is exported, - mostly to Western Europe.

“This is because 60 years agb, when the world was looking for new vegetable oil sources, the Americans chose ■ soybeans and the Russians sunflowers,” explained Mr Gregg Lauser, a spokesman for Cargill,; Inc, a large sunflower processor. . But Soviet production has remained virtually ,• static and Europe has

turned increasingly to the United States for supplies. However, an economist* Mr Randy Sheldon, who has developed a ; proposed sunflower contract for the Chicago Board of Trade 9 the world’s largest commodity futures . exchange, said: sunflower consumption is -’ now really catching in America. J