Spain: Great price gap between large and small onions

The harvest and marketing of Spanish onions started prematurely in August in Castile-La Mancha, Spain's main producing area, due to extreme temperatures in June and July. According to Procecam, the Association of Onion Producers of Castile-La Mancha, these high temperatures have not only caused the onions to arrive earlier, but have also led to a reduction of the calibres, and therefore of the production volumes. In the rest of Spain there have also been production drops, either due to hail or to heavy rainfall.

transplant onions have suffered much less from the impact of the heat."

According to the Procecam spokesperson, this decline in production has already been noticed in the markets, since onion prices stand low but stable at the moment, enough to cover production costs.
In spite of the problems with calibres, Luis Fernando highlights the good health of this year's onions, with very few thrips issues. Castile-La Mancha continues harvesting onions at the moment ... "with ideal weather conditions."

The Spanish export of onions continues to increase
Although the domestic market is very strong for Spanish onions, exports continue to increase significantly, according to Luis Fernando.

"About 47% of the Spanish onion production is exported, mainly to EU countries and to a lesser extent, to third countries, with newly opened markets such as Taiwan and the United States," he explains.