Many onions are currently being exported. “Volumes are large, but Senegal is practically the only destination. The Tabaski holiday of 11 September traditionally causes a peak in sales, so I suspect it will become slightly calmer from next week. Some onions have been sent to Central America, but other than that, export is quite limited. Senegal will definitely remain on the market, but we will also have to get other destinations, if we want to maintain export volumes,” Martijn van Damme of Dacomex says.
Van Damme is pleased with the quality of the onions. “We have mostly finished with plant onions by now, and we had no problems with those. We are now gradually switching to seed onions. We had already received the first seed onions last week, and the first plots are now being started in the Flevopolder and the Noordoostpolder. Volumes are somewhat disappointing. Especially in the southwest - yields often remain under 45-50 tonnes per hectare. The yields in the polders are slightly larger, but we can definitely not speak of a record harvest.”
“On the global market, Africa remains a stable factor, but other than that, we have many uncertainties. Brazil invested significantly in the cultivation of onions, but it is expected they will not enter the market this year. Exports to the Middle East are still problematic because of large harvests in Asia. Besides, we cannot yet compete with our prices. European countries such as Spain and Poland also have many onions. That will mostly determine the state of the market,” Van Damme expects.
“By now, the bale price has dropped slightly. From 20 cents last week, we are at around 19 cents this week. You can currently buy field onions for 12 cents from growers, but I would not be surprised if even those prices decrease somewhat. However the producers are unlikely to be willing to sell their onions at a much lower price. Obviously, they have to recover costs on cultivation with a lower tonnage per hectare.”
For more information:
Dacomex
Provincialeweg 46
Sint-Maartensdijk