OLT COUNTY – SUNFLOWER PRODUCER AT NATIONAL AND REGIONAL LEVEL

Abstract

Sunflower is the main oilseed crop in Romania. The species justifies its interest in practicing it through its multiple uses: food, industrial, fodder, technological, export and profit-making. Analyzing the situation of this crop, in the case of Olt County, is justified by the agricultural potential of the respective county, which has a total area of 549,828 ha, an agricultural area of 436,515 ha and an arable area of 390,336 ha. Under these conditions, sunflower occupied 69,661.71 ha, which represents 15.96% of the agricultural area and 17.85% of the cultivated arable area. At the national level, Olt County held, on average (for the period 2017-2023), 6.31% of the cultivated area (1,103,719.86 ha), and at the regional level 38.14% (182,661.86 ha).
Olt County obtained 174,459 t of sunflower, which determines a share of 6.55% at national level (2,661,881.86 t) and 38.07% at regional level (458,195.14 t) – the second producer after Dolj County. The average production per hectare was 2,557 kg, at county level, which makes Olt exceed the national level (2,418 kg) by 5.75% and the regional level (2,539 kg) by 0.71%.
Based on the specificity of Olt County, it can be considered an important sunflower producer at the regional level under conditions of a convenient level of capitalization, especially for medium and large-sized producers, but the negative influence of the climatic factor must be reduced.