The rapeseed blossom 2025: A look at Germany's golden fields!

On April 24, 2025, the flowering rapeseed fields dominate in Germany, which shine in bright yellow and draw a striking picture of the landscape. Rapeseed is cultivated in a broad cultivation area that extends from North Friesland to the Allgäu and from Lower Rhine to Altmark. In late summer 2024, the winter rapeseed was sown to around 1.11 million hectares, which corresponds to an increase of 2.3 % compared to the previous year. Germany is one of the leading growing countries in Europe, only behind France, which has an acreage of 1.27 million hectares for the 2025 harvest.

In the entire European Union, winter rapeseed is grown to around 5.8 million hectares. The EU is also the world's largest importer of rapeseed, especially from Canada, Australia and Ukraine. The German oil mills need around 9 to 10 million tons of rapeseed annually, while only 3.8 to 4.3 million tons are harvested in Germany. For the 2024/25 season, a global rapeseed harvest of around 87.2 million tons is expected, with Canada being the leading growing country, followed by the EU, China, India and Australia.

import needs increase due to smaller harvest

Due to a smaller harvest in the EU, a lot of approximately 23 million tons are expected for rapeseed processing. The German oil mills have a processing capacity of around 10 million tons of rapeseed. In the first half of the 2024/25 financial year, Ukraine was the dominant country of origin for import, while Canada and Australia are increasingly focusing at the turn of the year. By January 19, 2025, 3.4 million tons of rapeseed were imported into the EU-27, which corresponds to an increase of 5 % compared to the same period last year.

Ukraine remains the most important country of origin for rapeseed with 2.2 million tons and a share of 63 %. Until mid-January, Australia delivered 875,000 tons of rapeseed to the EU market, which corresponds to 19 % more than in the previous year and corresponds to a share of almost 26 %. Canada delivered 144,000 tons of rapeseed, although the delivery volume has more than tripled, but remains at a low level. Rapeseed oil from Canada can only be used to a limited extent due to GVO varieties in the EU and is primarily used to manufacture the biofuels. In comparison, Serbia and Moldova delivered only a fraction of the previous year.