At the beginning of December, VTA ( United Growers Farming) had the first stock inventory of onions carried out among its members for the 2019-2020 season. The most important conclusion with this intermediate position is that a successful export ensures that a substantial gap has already been made in the above-average production, as a result of which the free stock is now approximately at the level of the long-term average. This is also in line with the practical picture of relatively successful exports and the buying rounds, that has been observed for both yellow and red onions in recent weeks.
Average yield per hectare
The average yield of all submitted results is 54.1 tonnes net per ha. This is approximately 5 tonnes lower than initially determined during the test harvesting. This is approximately the level of the long-term average, with a correction being made for the extremely dry season of last year. The minimum is 30 tonnes per ha, while the maximum is 80 tonnes per ha. for the seed onions. The yield for the yellow onions was 54.4 tonnes per ha and for the red onions this was 50.7 tonnes per ha. The yield of the onion sets was on average 57.6 tonnes per hectare.
Area expansion
According to the CBS ( Central Bureau of Statistics) figures, an area expansion of 5.9% was achieved nationally, whereby the area of seed onions was expanded by no less than 8.8% to approximately 27,600 hectares. VTA sees a 2.5% decrease in the area under stock inventory participants. Not strange when they find that the expansion takes place in particular in the non-traditional growing areas, while its members are actually in the traditional growing areas. In Zeeland, The Netherlands, they also saw a fall of 11.4% in onion areas at Statistics Netherlands.
Stock
The volume delivered by the participants in the stock inventory is approximately at the same level as the long-term average. Around 29% has been delivered. This is in line with the image of a successful sale. Due to the successful export, it could be expected that the number of tons delivered was slightly higher. Exports, on the other hand, contain a fair share of non-traditional growing areas, where a relatively large proportion of land has been delivered, while a substantial volume of onion seedlings have also been exported.
In absolute tonnes, VTA members have 5.3% more stock than the long-term average. 31% of this was sold. This is mainly because a larger part of the red onions has already been sold. This percentage is 44% for red onions and 26% for yellow onions. Normally around 25% of the stock is sold around this time. The total free inventory is therefore approximately the long-term average of stock inventory in this period. This is somewhat lower for the red onions than for the yellow ones.
For more information:
VTA
W: www.vtanederland.nl