Why Sunflower Seeds May Be Hard To Get In 2022

When you need a healthy snack, you can't go wrong with sunflower seeds. As For Care Education and Research reports, these seeds are a nutrient-packed superfood that contain a ton of healthy fats, fiber, vitamins, and minerals needed by the human body. And, with many focusing on New Year's Resolutions very soon, this food will be one desired for its seeming health benefits. But, due to production issues, the snack might be that much harder to come by in 2022. According to Dakota Farmer, sunflowers have faced some serious road bumps over the past year. Due to droughts, farmers in Argentina and regions around the Black Sea have had issues producing enough sunflowers to keep up with consumer demand for the products they produce.

Global Trade also reports that demand for sunflower oil drastically increased over the course of 2021, driving up the price of sunflower plants across the world. The droughts that caused price fluctuations earlier in the year may have come to an end, but thanks to growing demand for sunflower products in more countries, getting your hands on the seeds might prove slightly tougher than normal in the coming year.

According to a press release provided by Allied Analytics, it's said that a global trend toward healthy eating has pushed greater demand for sunflower oil. The increased want for the oil has also spurred a greater interest in the seeds, and the drive to plant more of the flowers has caused shortage concerns over availability. Additionally, growing global markets also helped spur an increased demand for snack foods derived from sunflower oil, further raising the stakes for this crop. Due to these combined factors, experts believe that market prices for sunflower seeds should see a significant increase in the near future.

You might imagine that only humans plan to snack on these seeds, but in actuality, they make excellent bird seed and animal feed thanks to their nutritional content. Countries across Europe and Asia have started planting more sunflowers as a result of the shifting market, so expect some big changes for this snack and some possible price fluctuations at the grocery store in 2022 — though hopefully it'll level out at some point.