According to customs data, Moldova exported almost 92,000 tons of sunflower in March this year. This is the highest figure for the first month of spring (the last third of the season) in five years. For comparison, in March 2025, 69 thousand tons of Moldovan sunflower were exported. Close to the March figure of this year were the external supplies of this agricultural product in the crisis year 2022 – 84 thousand tons.
The average invoice price of Moldovan sunflower for export last month was 12.08 lei/kg. In the five-year period, the average March price for this raw material when exported to foreign markets was higher (17.17 lei/kg) only in 2022, also as a consequence of the energy crisis and war.
In total, from the beginning of the current marketing season (August 2025) till March 2026, Moldova exported almost 704 thousand tons of sunflower, worth almost 8 billion lei. Compared to the same period of the last season, the export of this raw material increased by 32% in physical terms and by 50% in value terms. This is a historical record, notes agro-marketing expert Iurie Rizha in his review of the Moldovan sunflower market.
Who are the buyers, who are the sellers?
In the list of countries-buyers of Moldovan sunflower during the analyzed period three countries are leading with a big gap: Turkey (377 thousand tons), Romania (243 thousand tons) and Bulgaria (45 thousand tons). At the same time, they purchased this raw material at a relatively low price – 10.66-11.50 lei/kg.
Interestingly, Ukraine is on the list of sunflower importers from Moldova. The neighboring country bought a little more than 3 thousand tons of sunflower of this commodity at the highest price – 21.14 lei/kg (probably, in this case we are talking about seed material).
The three leading traders-exporters of the Moldovan market of sunflower were formed by “OROM-IMEXPO” SRL, “RUSAGRO-PRIM” SRL and “VADALEX GRAINS” SRL. These operators accounted for about 45% of exports of Moldovan sunflower from last year’s harvest.
Forecast for the end of the marketing season
During the first week of April external supplies of sunflower from Moldova were carried out at a rather high rate – more than 16 thousand tons. At the same time, the average invoice price at the beginning of this month increased up to 12.22 lei/kg.
However, by the middle of the month, as Logos Press wrote, according to the market operators’ observations, the rate of raw material purchase for export decreased due to the rise in logistics costs and deficit of free capacities of the port infrastructure. It can be assumed that this circumstance will affect the overall indicator of Moldovan sunflower exports for April this year.
According to expert estimates, at the beginning of April of the current year there were about 100 thousand tons of sunflower of crop-2025 left on elevators of agricultural producers and traders of Moldova
