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Our Industry: Grains - Sunflowers
SUNFLOWERS
What It Is,
How They're Marketed
and How They're Used
Sunflowers are a native North American plant, believed to have started in what now is Arizona and New Mexico as early as 3000 B.C. They were used by the Indians for food, like wafer bread and cakes. Indians also cracked and ate the seed like nuts. The sunflower seed also provided the Indians with a purple dye for baskets, textiles and body paint.
In the 1500s, early Spanish explorers took sunflowers back to Europe, where they were used as an ornamental garden plant and kitchen garden food. Peter the Great is credited with introducing the sunflower to Russia. It has been the main source of edible vegetable oil in the former Soviet Union and eastern European countries for decades. The food-type sunflower was brought back to North America by immigrants and cultivated in the Northern Plains states.
Total world production has been about 21 million metric tons in recent years. The Commonwealth of Independent States produces about one-fourth of the world's sunflowers, followed by Argentina, France, Spain, the United States and China. The United States grows about 6 percent of world sunflower stocks.
The Types of Sunflowers
There are two types of sunflowers:
1. Oilseed sunflowers, which were first grown in Canada in the 1930s, account for about 90 percent of U.S. production. Sunflowers are one of the world's four major annual crops grown for edible oil (the others being soybeans, peanuts and rapeseed.) The oilseed sunflower produces a small, pure black seed that is very rich in vegetable oil. Production is concentrated in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
2. Confectionary (or food) sunflowers account for the rest of U.S. production. The seeds typically are larger than the oilseed variety. This is the kind of sunflower seed used for raw, roasted or salted snack food, as well as for food for birds and small animals. Production is concentrated in North Dakota and Minnesota. Lesser quantities are grown in South Dakota, California and Texas.
The Sunflower Plant -- Stages of Life
The sunflower is a member of the thistle family and is a warm-season crop grown in a wide variety of soils. Yields vary greatly, depending on the region where sunflowers are grown.
Planting: Sunflowers
are planted in late spring and early summer in the Northcentral states.
Growing:
The plants grow rapidly, reaching heights of between four and 20 feet.
The growing season lasts approximately 120 days. Usually, the plant has
only a single, hair-covered stem that may be more than one inch in diameter.
The sunflower is a unique plant because of its reaction to sunlight. The head of the sunflower points East toward the sun during the morning. As the day wears on, the stem rotates so that the sunflower head follows the path of the sun.
Harvesting:
Combines equipped with a special sunflower header attachment are used
to harvest the crop, starting in September after the backs of the sunflower
heads are yellow or yellowish brown.
Sunflowers -- Their Journey to Market
Of the U.S. sunflower utilization each year:
- about 66 percent is crushed for domestic use;
- approximately 24 percent used for seed or industrial uses in the United States; and
- about 10 percent is exported.
More than 90 percent of the sunflowerseed meal produced in the United States is used domestically. That contrasts with sunflowerseed oil, more than 60 percent of which usually is exported.
Most of the crop is sold by the farmer, and is trucked to the country elevator or sunflowerseed processing plant located near the farm. Most of the confectionary (or food) sunflowers produced in the United States are hauled directly by the farmer to the processor.
If sold to a country elevator, the elevator determines the quality of the sunflowerseed before cleaning, drying, storing and conditioning it. The country elevator also is where the farmer typically obtains the supplies -- such as seed, fertilizer and chemicals -- needed to grow the crop. The elevator then sells the sunflowerseed to a buyer, which may be a sunflower processing plant. Or the country elevator may sell them to a terminal elevator -- a large multi-million bushel grain handling facility located in major marketing areas. The terminal elevator, in turn, grades, stores and conditions the sunflowers before selling and shipping them to a processor or to an export elevator, which sells the sunflower oil or meal to overseas customers. Most of U.S. sunflowerseed exports are shipped through the Great Lakes.
When entering into a contract for sunflowers, the buyer and seller agree on the price, quantity and quality to be delivered; and the price discounts or premiums that will apply if the actual sunflowers shipped are of a higher or lower quality than requested. The buyer and seller also determine how the grain is to be shipped (by rail, barge or truck).
Sunflowers -- How They're
Transformed into Useful Products
Sunflowers travel a different path depending on whether they are of the oilseed or confectionary variety.
The oilseed sunflowers used in human food and industrial products are processed at crushing plants, which crush or roll the seed and then cook the seed to separate the oil and meal:
The meal, which
is very high in protein, is an important feed ingredient for livestock and poultry,
particularly beef cattle and calves.
The oil, which
represents about 40 percent of the sunflowerseed's weight, is a high-quality
vegetable product used in human foods. Sunflower seed oil also has several important
industrial uses.
Confectionary (or food) sunflowers are handled differently depending on their size:
The largest seeds
are sold to processors for roasting as whole seeds for packaged snacks.
Medium-sized
seeds are dehulled (the hull is removed) before the kernel is roasted and packaged
for snacks and for ingredients for candy.
The smallest
seeds are used for bird seed and pet food, packaged either by themselves or
mixed with other grains.
Many Good Things Come from Sunflowers
Hull: High-energy content. A byproduct from processing (particularly confectionary seeds). Generally ground and pelleted and used as an animal feed ingredient for:
beef cattle
poultry dairy cattle
Also used in industrial products like:
fertilizer
fiberboard
Seed (Endosperm and Embryo): The oil-rich inner portion of the sunflower. Produces sunoil, a high-quality vegetable oil used in such food products as:
salad oil
salad dressings vegetable shortenings
cooking oil
margarine
Sunflowerseed oil also has important industrial uses as a drying agent used in:
paints
resins plastics