Analysis Onions
Boat for Africa brings life to the onion party
The export of onions is not going wrong at all for this stage of the season. Volumes are good and the Netherlands has a foothold in many destinations. However, buyers are being cautious. The declining trend that started quite quickly after the beginning of the season is making packers careful. It seems that there might be some changes happening now.
Rain and wet weather characterized a large part of the growing season. In the past few days, there has been locally significant rain again in various parts of the Netherlands. The showers have passed the Southwest. Ideal conditions for loading onions that were already in the swath. However, in different places, it was already too dry to be able to harvest. Next week, there is precipitation in the weather forecasts for the whole of the Netherlands. The amounts that, for example, Buienradar indicates may not be spectacular, but if the forecast is correct, we will have some rain every day. Also not ideal conditions for the harvest.
Next week, if everything goes according to plan, a boat will arrive for Senegal. A wet period and extra demand due to a boat that needs to be loaded will at least create some commotion. Certainly, the larger self-exporting sorters have enough onions available and are not worried about that. However, some sorters have been cautious in the declining market and are a bit more concerned. Not being able to load for a week is not a problem, but it shouldn't last much longer for some, according to an insider. For growers who have brought in (a remainder of) planting onions, that offers some perspective.
Greater acreage
Overall, there are more than enough onions for the off-season. After a few financially good years, the acreage has been expanded, and not all those onions have storage. Let's not forget what is standing not far over the border in Germany. It is therefore not strange that sorters are cautious about buying these weeks.
The DCA quotation Bale price Onions is starting to stabilize. The bottom of planting onions is at €15 and rises to €22 for the large sizes of seed onions. Planting onions remains a bit of a competitive market for now, but the seed onions have found their provisional bottom. Sorted seed onions cannot be obtained for much less than €19 to €20.
