OREANDA-NEWS. September 08, 2014. Agriculture Minister of Moldova Vasile Bumacov said that during his trip to the village of Mascauti, (Criuleani), occasioned to the beginning of the sunflower harvest.

As he said, sunflower growers know little about problems facing growers of other plants, because sunflower seeds and oil are always in great demand and make about one fourth of Moldova's all exports. Since the beginning of this year, Moldova has exported sunflower seeds and oil at an amount of USD126 million.

About one fourth of the seed exports is usually sold to CIS, the same amount is dispatched to the EU, whereas 99% of the sunflower oil is exported to the states of Europe. According to the Minister, sunflower plantations occupy 300,000 hectares in Moldova; this is the ceiling because sunflowers may dry the soil out.

To increase the plantation’s capacity is possible by planting new species of sunflower, the Minister thinks. As the Agriculture Ministry reports, major importers of Moldovan sunflower are Turkey (about 35%), Ukraine (19.4%), Romania (19.4%) and Great Britain (6%). The sunflower oil is imported by Spain (9.8%), Romania (6.4%), Cyprus (2.4%) and other countries.