Breeding onions for 365 days and for all day lengths

Het Broek op Langedijkse De Groot en Slot BV has to compete against large multinationals such as Syngenta, Monsanto and Limagrain and a whole host of smaller onion seed companies in the United States, Japan and Europe. Yet she succeeds more than nicely. Director Jeroen de Haas explains where the company stands and where it wants to go.

Can you still earn some money in seed production with the bad onion prices of recent months?
'Of course we feel the bad market conditions when we visit growers to sell seed for the new season. But in 10 years you will be fine with onions for 7 to 8 years. Onion cultivation will therefore always remain, but it is a speculative crop that is completely dependent on the market.'

An important price factor is Senegal. Africa is working hard to get the local onion cultivation off the ground. Isn't that at the expense of Dutch exports?
'That is a discussion that comes up often. Dutch customers sometimes accuse us that our exports will be lost if Africa starts producing more itself, but we do not see that happening immediately. The onion area here has doubled over the past 15 years and it has been stable in recent years, with more demand for onions every year. Now that is a bit different this season, because there are onions left, but the quality is good and that is what concerns us. Develop and produce a high-quality product that you can take anywhere.'

Africa is "upcoming" in onions. How is the continent now?
'Here in the Netherlands, farmers are happy if they get 10 cents for their onions, but in almost all African countries the onion price is 50 cents per kilo, year round. That means that there is always a shortage. The market for seed can therefore only grow and growers will have to emerge in other areas as well. It is well received. You see that in Africa too, growers are switching to drip irrigation, for example. On a continent like Asia, there are other challenges. In Indonesia, for example, the production of shallots has to be increased. Cultivation has been taking place in certain areas for a long time, but they are now getting stuck there due to diseases and low yields. In principle, the cultivation should move to another area, but that does not happen overnight. These are obstacles that you will encounter as a seed breeder. This means that every market has its own specific challenges to overcome.'


Where is your strength?
'De Groot en Slot is the world market leader in onion breeding. The only company that has developed onion varieties for all day length zones and in all types (yellow, red, white, stem), both in seed and onion sets. This allows the onion market to deliver a program to supermarkets 365 days a year. Because we only focus on onions, you know how to make more of them. The onion is not an easy product to propagate. A biennial crop that must be grown from seed to bulb and back to seed. We grow on trial fields in different parts of the world with various day lengths: North, Central and South America, Africa, various countries in Northern, Central and Southern Europe, India and China, as well as on many hectares of greenhouses in the Netherlands. where the parental lines are maintained.'

And the growth, where should it come from?
'In the coming years we expect to grow in the short day area (day length of approximately 12-14 hours, or between zero and 25 degrees latitude north and south). This is an immense area where many people live. That is the market where we are doing the least at the moment, but which in the long term may take over the current market in terms of size. We also see an increase in red onions. As a company, we take the market share more than proportionally. We also believe we can achieve growth in the United States, Southern Europe, the Balkans and Asia. The latter is a market with increasing added value, because residents have more money to spend. Finally, for our short day of onions, there is a market in Africa: from Egypt to the south; countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania and South Africa. As for shallots, we are developing varieties for Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh. In northwestern Europe, where we have a large market share, the onion acreage will remain fairly stable and not much will change.'

Ambitious plans, but what's in it for the Dutch onion grower?
'Because we work internationally, we know very well what is required in the various markets. To illustrate: The type of onion that Brazil wants is in line with what we do in the Netherlands. It is in our interest that the sector continues to thrive, that everyone earns money. However, the onion trade is a free market, which means that the grower must be able to be flexible enough. They can choose to grow red onions or focus on quality. It is our job to offer the widest possible package. Everything we do in the field of disease resistance, we do to keep the cultivation here.'

In recent years, quality has been placed high on the Dutch agenda. What are you doing about it?
'Fusarium is becoming a bigger problem. We now have a breed that is a lot stronger against this disease than other breeds. As a result, growers with a fusarium problem can now continue to grow onions in a good way. There is no solution for head rot yet. That cannot be solved with resistance breeding either. We make sure that the seed we supply is 100 percent disease-free, so that the fungus does not come along with the seed. It is then up to the grower to make the right choices through cultivation measures and storage regimes and to keep head rot at the door.'

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