Thank you very much, Tracy, and hello, everyone joining this call today. Welcome to our KWS conference call on today's publication of the first nine months of fiscal year 2021/2022. Before we go into the financial details, I would like to reflect on the current and quite tense situation in the agricultural sector. It's not normal times we're currently in, and we're really observing disruptions on many levels, which could mean that in the foreseeable future that we might be confronted with sharply rising food prices and even with food security risks, especially in the poorer regions of the world.
High commodity prices for agricultural commodities, the limited availability of important input factors, and the expected loss of agricultural production and exports in the context of the Ukraine war lead us into a scenario that is unprecedented for the past, as most of us have experienced so far. Added to this are the unpredictable consequences of climate change, which seem to be getting worse every year, like we currently can observe in India with temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius and more. Of course, these and other effects, such as the general inflationary trends, also affect our results in a negative way. We would like to pass on our higher costs to our customers, but to what extent can farmers still cope with cost explosion for input factors?
For example, in the light of the current price level for fertilizers, farmers are forced to adapt their planting decisions and change practices, which, however, can increase the distortions in the agricultural market and result in, you know, lower yields. Looking at KWS, the effects of the mentioned topics are already visible in our financials. The increase in multiplication costs as a consequence of high commodity prices and the general inflationary trend have put a significant strain on our margins in the first nine months. Adding to this, we are facing negative effects from the consequences of the Ukraine war by a low double-digit million EUR figure on foreign exchange effects. Nevertheless, it's very clear to us that we will continue our support for Ukrainian colleagues and farmers in various ways and support the reconstruction of Ukrainian agriculture.
For this purpose, we have agreed to reserve additional funds to help rebuilding the Ukrainian infrastructure once the destruction has come to an end. After these introductory words, let's move on to our nine-month figures. Sales increased significantly by around 13%, with all product segments contributing to this, with the exception of vegetables. I will go into detail about the individual segments later. Overall, currency effects only had a minor impact. Positive effects, particularly from the US dollar and the Brazilian real, were offset by negative effects from Eastern Europe and Turkey. In terms of EBIT and EBITDA, we are slightly below the previous year's figures, which I believe is a good achievement given the charges we have suggested.
Altogether, the increase in production costs in Brazil, the effect from the Ukraine war, and the devaluation of the Turkish lira had a total effect on the operating result of around EUR 35 million in the first nine months. Our financial results improved nicely, thanks to both a better interest result and higher earnings contribution from our US joint venture, AgReliant. With regard to net results and earnings per share, we are at the level of previous years, despite a considerable headwind already referred to. In terms of operating cash flow, we are below the last year's figure, but at the usual level of previous years. Last year, there were some phasing effects that positively impacted our cash flow.
Our CapEx of EUR 67 million has risen back to the level of previous years after we were a little more cautious last year due to the corona pandemic. For the full year, we are still aiming for a figure of around EUR 100 million. Let's now turn to the individual product segments. Sales in the corn segment increased significantly by 20%. Our business in Brazil, with growth of around 60%, made a major contribution to this development. In Brazil, we continue to benefit from the great success of our varieties, but also from the overall very good market conditions. We also see good growth in other markets, for example, Argentina with 13% and Europe with 5% growth. Although our Ukrainian corn business declined due to the difficult local situation, it was better than initially assumed.
Especially in the regions that are not affected by the war, farmers continue planting seeds. Our North American joint venture, AgReliant, achieved sales growth of 11%, driven by a strong increase in soybeans and positive foreign currency effects. In the case of corn, on the other hand, sales declined slightly in a difficult market environment. In the United States, we are seeing a shift in acreage from corn to soybeans due to the rise in input factors, which is proving detrimental to our corn sales and product mix. The segment results fell from EUR 78 million last year to a current EUR 73 million, mainly due to the significant increase in production costs and the expansion of business in Brazil, as well as negative effect from the Ukraine war.
For the corn segment, we continue to expect a significant increase in sales, but due to the effects just mentioned and expected lower earnings contribution from AgReliant, we now forecast an EBIT margin below the previous year's level. Let's now turn to the sugar beet segment, where we recorded sales growth of 4%, while total acreages for sugar beet remained globally stable. Our business continues to be driven by the success of our product innovations. On the one hand, our CONVISO Smart variety portfolio, which already accounts for around 20% of the segment sales. Then there's our new kid on the block, the new Cercospora-tolerant varieties, we call CR+. Cercospora is one of the most widespread and harmful diseases in sugar beet cultivation, and we are therefore convinced that we will see similar success with this innovation, as with CONVISO Smart.
In the Q4 of this year, we expect further relevant sales for the segment, especially in North America, so that nothing should stand in the way of another convincing year for sugar beets. At EUR 162 million, EBIT was at the same level as in the previous year. In addition to general cost increases, devaluation of the Turkish lira had a negative impact on earnings in the magnitude of EUR 6 million. Given the positive development, our forecast for sugar beet remains unchanged. For the full year, we see even slightly stronger growth than after nine months with a consistently higher profit margin. Now let's move on to the cereals segment, which is completing most of the business in the first half of the fiscal year. Here we record a strong increase of 14% compared to previous year.
The main growth driver this year was our rapeseed business, which grew by 43%, benefiting from high commodity prices and thus increased acreages planted and improved variety performance. In addition to growth in hybrid rye and wheat, we also saw an increase in sorghum, a less well-known but very robust and healthy grain. The very positive business development is also reflected in our earnings figures. With a segment result of EUR 54 million, we achieved a significant growth compared to the previous year. Our forecast for the full year remains unchanged. We expect significant increases in sales and the EBIT margin. Let's now turn to vegetables, KWS' smallest product segment. As in the Q1' s of this year, sales were below the prior year for various reasons.
We continued to have higher than usual inventories at distributors and at the same time, we're seeing increased competition for our main product, spinach seed. We expect to gain some ground in the Q4 also with the planned introduction of our new improved spinach varieties. Even if the current business development is below our earlier expectations, we regard this as a temporary phase of weakness. We continue to invest in the expansion of our breeding activities as planned. For example, this year with the acquisition of land in Spain. We have now established breeding teams in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Mexico, and Brazil to drive our breeding programs forward. We are right on schedule here, and this will also be reflected in growing business in the medium term.
The segment results without PPA effects declined due to the mentioned developments, and as we expect this trend to continue also for the full year, we have adjusted our forecast for vegetables. Finally, a look at our expectations for the current financial year ending June thirtieth. As you remember, in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we had significantly lowered our forecast at the beginning of March. Now that most of the sowing campaign could be successfully completed, which is unbelievable in the light of the people's personal situation in Ukraine, we can be a bit more optimistic on the sales side. Here we are now assuming sales growth of around 10%. With regard to the EBIT margin, however, we're sticking to our adjusted forecast of 8%-9% due to the relevant negative factors on the cost side I already mentioned.
All in all, we are well on the way to a successful fiscal year for KWS, the results of which we will then report to you at the end of September. With that, I would like to close my presentation. Thank you for the attention so far, and I look forward to your questions.
We will now take our first question from Christian Faitz from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, Ms. Kienle. Couple of questions, if I may. First would be, from your comments, I infer that you seem to be rather happy, at least with the sales performance of AgReliant. I take it, however, that your partner doesn't seem to be overly happy with AgReliant. Would that at some point give you the opportunity to take out that stake and be the full owner? As a first question. Can you elucidate a bit in more detail the dynamics of your higher seed production costs, and when do you expect them to ease? I believe that's like a 2023 scenario, right?
Yeah. I'll take this. That's the questions you have?
That's it for now. Yes. Thank you.
With regard to the sales performance, we are rather happy or positive about AgReliant's corn performance. On the contrary, where you have read in Limagrain's press release that they're not so happy. I think for the first nine months, they have performed well. What we see now is a significant shift to soybean rather than corn, which of course impacts the profitability to the negative. There is as usual not a strong Q4 . Looking at the overall expectations for the year, from a top line, it's okay. It's growing, but it's growing, let's say, on the less profitable soybean.
Whereas on the cost side, they have significant cost increases in selling, but also in administration and G&A. So to say overall, that they could not compensate for keeping their margin, and that's why for the full year, the expectation is that we will not be so happy that we couldn't take this forward. Would that mean that we're discussing anything on taking the 50% stake of Limagrain? Not at all. There is no way anything near to being thought about or discussed, and we are fully convinced, and we are fully managing this joint venture together. Neither of the parties, nor Limagrain nor us, has any indication on quitting the American market here.
Commodity price development, depending on the crops, this is different, so to say, especially also with when can we put the price increase forward to our customers. For the 2021-2022, we were hit with the increase in commodity prices that started in autumn with our multiplication contracts that are now on the field. As most of the prices are related or linked to the commodity price development, we can expect clearly where the incoming production now is going to. On the other side, sales season then only starts. The sales season 2021-2022 is over. Contract for 2021-2022 season start as early as summer 2021. Clearly we are after effect of increased multiplication prices.
If you see a price increase, and again, depending on markets and crops, it's coming in 2022, 2023, but very little this year.
Okay. Thank you. Very helpful, Mrs. Kienle.
We will now take our next question from Andreas Heine from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes, the first question is basically a clarification on the temporary or special items you were referring to. 35 it was in total, as you mentioned, and I got the Turkey FX impact in sugar beet is EUR 6 million. Is that all what you have in sugar beet from the 35? That doesn't mean that the headwinds, the special headwinds in corn was EUR 29 million. That's the first question. I'd like to dig a little bit more into corn. The last time when soft commodity prices were high, that was 2013, 2014, 2015. That was the last really good years. We have seen that then in the earnings at KWS, which were close to EUR 100 million. Now you have EUR 200 million more sales, but we not really see this.
Is it that it's just delayed so that you need one more year of price increases, or is the competitive situation really that different? Then coming to Brazil, which has, well, Latin America in total, great sales performance over the last few years. If my math is right, then meanwhile, you have sales of north of EUR 200 million in this region, but barely any earnings so that your costs are as high as the sales are. Looking forward, is there any chance that you can get to a decent margin in this business? Going forward, well, the costs seem to be as they are, north of EUR 200 million. At one point, sales increase will not have the same momentum. I can't see how you can get to a better profitability that region, I think.
These are my two questions for the time being.
Special items, overall, you mentioned the TRY 6 million. There, of course, there's a large portion of Ukraine war effects. The shortfall in EBIT loss from all the markets there, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia. On top of this is an increase in the costs in Brazil for some write-offs on old or obsolete soybean material from prior years. This makes the total of those 35. Again, the biggest portion of this is the shortfall that we are expecting right now as an outcome of the shortage in sales in Eastern Europe.
How am I?
Um, how-
How is this split between the two, sugar beet and corn, in this respect?
Yeah. Sugar beet is doing a little better than we initially expected because the sugar beet planting region is in most of the regions that is not affected directly so much by war. That is west of Kyiv region to the Polish frontier, whereas corn and sunflower is in eastern part of Ukraine. Planting has been completed sort of as foreseen almost entirely for sugar beet, whereas they are just close to 70-80% of the initial plants in corn and a little lower, 60 to 50% in sunflower. That's the expectation. There is a difference in with regard to the hit that they're taking.
For that is, let's say, EUR 10-12 million, and then the rest in corn?
You mean the split by business unit?
Yeah. The EUR 35 million you have. I just want to get a flavor of how earnings would have been if we did not have these events and the special costs in Brazil.
No, overall, you can expect, as we said, a low double-digit EUR million amount in EBIT loss from the war effects. The assumption on how it splits is more by country that we look into it rather than by-
Okay.
That's of course the biggest hit coming from Ukraine. Still open is the Belarus situation because there, the sugar factories are state-controlled. You had a second question on corn and the sales increase, and when is profitability getting better, especially with regard to the Brazilian development. Well, first of all, we have to now to realize that we have two seasons in Brazil, and there is one that is significantly growing at the cost of the more profitable other season, the second season. There is a little margin sort of impact with regard to the region that is growing.
On the other hand, we have, of course, due to the growth, increased production costs always the season before or let's say, half a year before, the sales really kick in. That comes also at a high financing cost for working capital, and we are not fully yet with our portfolio on proprietary germplasm, so we still do have license costs to bear to Bayer. With increased sales and increased product need, of course, the cost, the license cost that we have to pay when producing are also increasing.
Better profitability can be expected with a shift of our product portfolio more to proprietary germplasm and the Syngenta traits, as you know, from the Kleffmann deal and speed up that development further, and that is the leverage to increase profitability there. Also with regards to selling, I think definitely would be nice, but with a 30%-40% growth year-on-year, that will certainly come to an end at one point in time, and then we will see, of course, economies of scale or flattening out of increased sales efforts and sales personnel.
Is that all midterm or can that happen already next year? When do you think you-
Long term. More mid-term.
Midterm. Thanks.
As another reminder to ask a telephone question, please signal by pressing star one. We will now take our next question from Michael Schaefer from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my two questions, basically. The first one is on the vegetable segment. I see basically the point that this year is really kind of lost year for the segment. Could you just remind us basically on your what kind of let's say intended or planned cost burden from the expansion of your own breeding activities the segment now has to bear and how this is evolving into next year. As a kind of non-market related cost inflation.
The second element, how should we think about this segment then evolving into next year, or given the fact that obviously competitive pressure seems to intensify or do you expect this to ease a bit with more varieties from your side coming? This is the first question A and B, if you like. Second one is on sugar beet. You mentioned the well-adopted CONVISO Smart with 20% share of sales, if my math is right, we talk north of EUR 120 million, which is a nice growth compared to last year's close to EUR 80 million.
However, given that now we see the war in the Ukraine and the tension with Russia and with Russia being the single largest acreage market, and basically CONVISO SMART virtually designed for this kind of broad acreage range, how do you see this basically evolving on the further penetration of your portfolio with CONVISO SMART? Maybe related to this one, given the strong inflation we see in the CP component, I mean, crop protections are shown with CONVISO One, do you see any change in, let's say, adoption rates from sugar beet farmers as the crop protection part is probably inflating significantly, which may put some question marks on the overall profitability of the whole system.
Any thoughts on this one would be helpful. Thank you.
Can you just explain a little more the last question? Your thoughts are whether if the input costs for farmers do increase, especially if you relate to CP, what that does to the seed? Is that about the question?
Well, obviously, the system has two legs. The one is the seed and the other one is the crop protection, right? So,
Yeah.
What we have seen is a significant inflation of crop protection prices, reported by
At least by the partner you have with Bayer. I wonder whether there is underlying huge system cost inflation for the whole Conviso Smart system, fueled by the Conviso One CP component maybe, and which basically brings pressure on the overall, let's say, profitability of the whole system and whether this is having an impact on the adoption rate you see in this, maybe also looking forward and when basically the Russian acreage may not come as expected.
Okay. Let's start with the first, vegetables. How are we at with the cost of what we call greenfield approach, and the other one is the Pop Vriend acquisition that come together in this business unit. As you have seen in the results and also the expectations for this year, the business we have acquired is spinach beans mainly is still very profitable with 25%, excluding the purchase price allocation write-offs that come on top of that.
We have received, or we have taken this serious hit, first due to corona and the full stop and halt of food service gastronomy, and especially the organic baby leaf segment of portfolio. Also you mentioned, and that is right, so the increased competition with regard to the resistance in the quality, the add-on quality that the spinach has to provide for. So that's the main effect why Pop Vriend is suffering and is not returning the bottom line that we were expecting and that we had in the last years. What have we done on the other side? We have very carefully stretched the development plan for our greenfield approach, so it's less aggressive and less speedy as we initially thought.
We are clearly going to fulfill their, the market sort of entries and the product development where we're very lucky to get really excellent breeders. As I mentioned, it's in Italy and Spain and Mexico and Brazil and Turkey. There we go ahead. We have halted on some additional acquisitions that were planned, so we're not pursuing them further. Overall, this makes that we have a EUR 5 million more effect on the cost base, because again, the additional acquisitions would have also come with some profit, because this is then of course taken up or it's generated by the greenfield approach in building up the business unit. Sugar beet CONVISO, you were doing a sort of a quick calculation on what CONVISO could mean.
You're right, last year we were at roughly EUR 80 million sales. This year, the number you mentioned is too high, a little bit too high, but clearly a three-digit million EUR number we will have. We have an expectation for next year. As you mentioned, it's threefold. We're going there with a less, let's say, less clear step forward, as we had initially planned for initially. It was a linear growth expected. We are a little more taking out of speed in 2022, 2023 due to the Russian effect where we say, "Okay, we don't expect any increase in CONVISO in the Russian market." Very carefully here for 2022, 2023.
On the other side, we have still pending and challenging with the registration of CONVISO in Germany and France. France is looking better every day with regard to the process. Germany is super challenging, and this is why the expectations for next year with the CONVISO Smart development has been reduced a little bit. Definitely the way is up to come to go with larger step forward than in the midterm planning. Clearly the expectation on the overall development in Russia next year is extremely conservative. We have no ideas on how everything will develop. The assumptions we have taken can be as right as they are or as wrong as they are.
It all needs to be proven and seen as if we go further down the year, and if it comes to really harvesting, and also then the sale of commodity prices and exports in the agricultural sector. Then the adoption rate, or the problem on the farmer side with increased prices in farmers' input prices. It's not only with the war now, but also between if you take a starting point, let's say 2020 to January 2022, and then now with the conflict, there have already been significant price increases on the farm going on. It's not only CP, it's also fertilizers, especially nitrogen, and calcium and diesel.
Also diesel costs, fuel costs have risen in the last two years, so until January for almost 90%. Clearly, we expect that the minimum of like 20% of input costs increases for just, as I mentioned, fertilizers, diesel, fuel, oil, and electricity on the farm. Now the proportion roughly talking about sugar beet, if you look at really the part of costs on a farm is 10%-15% is seed, and the rest is all other inputs like fertilizers, like crop protection, and also like diesel, fuel, and all that thingy.
Now with the 15%, especially if you provide for such a quality increase that helps you to safeguard your yield output or your harvest. The farmer is absolutely willing to pay a top-up premium on the seed, as we see now also in CR+, rather than really squeezing the seed supplier because he is in trouble with his other input costs. On top of that, if you look also at the development in the prices, sugar is not that sort of super sexy as wheat or oilseed rape or corn prices are rising. You can see compared to January 2021, where prices were roughly around EUR 360-370, they are now around EUR 500.
Also sugar price on the Absatzmarkt side, sorry to say this in German, is returning nicely to the farmer. There is a little excuse to that he can digest what the price increase means. Clearly the sugar beet farmer is maybe not so well off as clearly corn, rapeseed and wheat farmers are these days.
Thank you very much. Clear.
We will now take our next question from Axel Herlinghaus from DZ Bank. Please go ahead.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for taking my two questions, which I would pose one by one. First one would be on the vegetable segment also. Could you give us a bit more information about the intense competition you mentioned? Are there regional differences in respect to Europe or USA? Are there reasons mainly due to the COVID-related high inventory that distributors or are there other factors playing into that? Lastly, in this complex, when do you expect, in view of global reopening development, that distributor overstocks will have returned to normal, that your vegetable business should be able to get back on the growth track?
The strong competition, as I mentioned, is especially playing also on the price side because everyone has, let's say, good stock on hand. It depends on also where you produce your seeds. That's something where competition is in a better cost relation, for example, than we are. They have a higher margin they can play with going to market. The other thing is that in spinach, for example, mildew resistance is super important. Roughly every three years, there is a new mildew variety that is coming forward. The faster you are in addressing that mildew variety or the better your seed is protected against this mildew, that triggers also a purchase decision.
That's where the competition is really sort of playing, is who is first and best in delivering seed with this new product quality. Again, a new resistance for a mildew variety. Right now we have already strain number 19. This gives you an indication that this disease is continually developing every two to three years. That's where you see the sales top line depression coming from. As I mentioned, we have been hit by the loss or the big loss of our production in New Zealand due to the bad weather there.
Of course, that sort of brought us also to a point where we just have not enough seed available to sell, because we lost a large portion of the production that was meant to be sold.
Do you see a comeback of coming back to growth by virtue of the global reopening development? There should be a development also in the distributor stocks, I guess. That when these stocks come down, there should be more room for perhaps better pricing, more demand coming back into the market. Would you agree to that?
I would agree on one side. The other question is, and that is again, a question on what the overall competitive behavior, if the distributors or growers can't use their stock inventory right now any longer, because again, there is resistance breakage or new mildew variety, they might turn around and want to return it for getting the new resistant varieties in. And that depends on how I say, how lenient you are in giving a sort of, you know, like returns or refund the returns or whether you say, yeah, bad luck, keep it and destroy it. That's to be seen. I think the last really mildew change we had in 2019, 2020.
The next is really expected to happen something like 2023, 2024, and then we will see. From a logistical, physical perspective, you're right, the demand should increase.
Okay, thanks for that. The second one would be on the supply chain. In the nine-month report, you listed the topic of disruptions also due to the corona development in China. Where is the Chinese situation most noticeable? More on the procurement or the delivery side? Are there some workarounds which are possible to compensate for the situation?
It's on the supply side, and it's mainly the things we're really sourcing from China, which is a lot for laboratory material or specialized laboratory material. It slows down enormously our let's say market technology and market analytics and the what we call lab services for breeding, which it makes the product development a little more complicated and more expensive. We have started looking into, of course, alternative suppliers from other parts of the world. This is the major part we are affected.
Of course then, as everyone is, but that to a lesser extent, sort of, electronic chips that might go into machinery and steering, so steering boards, switchboards, IT equipment and those thingies that are also like stuck or delayed for everyone. But as we have completed the last factories in Einbeck, of course, for example, the big one in Brazil last year, there is no real immediate need to fully equip a new factory with tons of machine steering and electronic chips.
Okay. Thank you very much.
As another reminder to ask a telephone question, please signal by pressing star one. We will now take a follow-up question from Andreas Heine from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yeah, I'll try three smaller ones. First is on that had a great performance this year, especially with rapeseed. Was that something unusual, positive in that year, or is that something we can also expect going forward? This segment has most of the sales in the second calendar half. That was not affected in any means by the situation in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Is that then impacting your business in the next years? That's first on Sirius. Secondly, a very small one on vegetables. You talk about a smaller margin in for this year. Actually, it was negative by now, even excluding the PPA. I would assume to see also kind of not better than break even on the full year.
Does that still fit with this lower margin or is it something, some improvement you expect in the last quarter? Finally, really the corn pricing power. The price for your seed multiplication goes up again for the next season. You have the situation as you had in the last season once more, that you have to increase prices to offset the cost increases. Whenever soft commodity prices in last cycles were like this, it seemed to have been much easier to yeah to transfer these costs and to even benefit with higher margins in times of high soft commodity prices. This looks now completely different. Why is it that every other input factor for the farmers can increase substantially, only the seed prices cannot?
Okay. Let me start with the last one. Are you expecting or where do you relate to that the seed prices will not increase as much as the other inputs do? Or was the question whether it's expected to do?
Well, fertilizer prices have two-three times as high. Diesel, as you said, 90% higher, crop protection at least double digit. In the seed business, it seems that the seed companies take the hit while the other areas of producing input factors for farmers have the benefit.
No, we don't think that. I start with the last one. From our perspective, and we're very crystal clear here, it's not only the current market situation on the commodity side that allows very clearly for price increases, because otherwise the farmer will make a lot more margin, even with increased input prices. It's also the question on Scope 3 emission reduction and the sustainability agenda and saying, if you don't go for going into seed and less input, this is something that seed, our seed provides.
Saying if you take a nitrogen use efficient variety of corn or something that requires less pesticides and insecticides, you will increase your margin just by the fact that you have exactly a seed that is performing better even with lower input on the protection side. This is clearly something. It, of course, helps the Green Deal and the Farm to Fork agenda. All the arguments are on the side of the seed saying, go for something that is good to your pocket, let's say to your purse and to the nature and sustainability. This is why it's definitely how you say justifying a cereals clear top-up.
Overall for Europe, we're clearly planning for a double-digit, a very very nice double-digit price increase in corn for Europe. It's not that we will not increase prices, because we will have a difficult discussion with the farmer. Of course, it depends on the countries, your position in there, what you really have to offer. It goes really from a low 10 to over 20% that we are expecting to increase price this year.
Okay. That sounds very good.
It was the last question, and let's go backward here. Vegetables negative, including amortization for PPA. Do we expect that the last quarter will make the situation looking less gray than it is in the first nine months? I fear we don't expect that, and that's why we also have adjusted our forecast on that one. We think right now, also in the end same, you could see it also in Limagrain's vegetable performance. The market is sort of struggling a little bit all overall vegetable produce right now. Clearly for this summer, we don't expect a huge comeback and catch up of the first nine months. That is unfortunately to be confirmed.
Real was the first question, especially on oilseed rape. Very good performance this year. Clearly it was super nice. 44% increase in the first nine months. You're right, it's mostly done in wintertime. Yeah, we expect this to continue also in 2022-2023. One thing is, France is still having the revocation for neonics application. That kicked in before it was banned, and it was released, and it kicked in in 2021-2022. They will have the last year of revocation next year. There is again a high demand and without any problems or constraints from France, French farmers.
The other thing is, you can see it if you clearly travel these days, it's all much more yellow than the last years. The other thing is, the rapeseed price is super attractive right now with very likely Russia not being able to deliver, and Ukraine on sunflower. Of course, the food producers of oil, rapeseed oil producers are urgently looking into provision for rapeseed oil, and this is why it's a super attractive product to farm for. We clearly expect this to be a very attractive crop also for 2022-2023.
Thanks. Very helpful.
There appears to be no further questions. At this time, I would like to turn the conference back to the host for any additional or closing remarks.
Thank you very much everyone for your questions. It was absolutely the right focus that you took. What is really worrying us most is clearly the development mid- and long-term that the Ukrainian war will bring to all of us in Europe. We really clearly hope it's not going any further and will impact other countries as well, and that at least the Ukraine situation is cleared very soon. Of course, we stay tuned. You will stay tuned, and I'm very much looking forward to talk to you once we have finished our fiscal year 2021-2022. Thank you very much and have a nice afternoon.