Last season everything was dominated by drought. And when you talk about drought in agriculture, you effortlessly mention the memorable years when a shortage of precipitation was a major concern. It will come as no surprise that 1976 is definitely at the top. However, time moves on and we can now look back on what harvest 2019 has brought us.
Drought was also an item this year, although there were even more challenges. I am thinking of the acreage that was sown in the Netherlands and other countries and of winning back favors from customers who could not or insufficiently be served last year. The export figure for the 2018/2019 season remains just above 822.000 tons. That has not been this low since the 2007/2008 season (773.000 tons). In that season, 19.826 hectares of seed onions were harvested, compared to 24.995 hectares in 2018.
More acreage
It has always been the case that extremes provoke extremes. A year with high product prices is almost always followed by a year with more acreage. The 2019 cultivation year is no exception: the potato area increased by 3% and the onion area by 6,5%. This breaks a record for onions. In short: the Netherlands can, may and must give all those onions a place again. Much has been invested in processing in recent years, and developments are not standing still. For example, it is now also possible to prepare 40.000 tons in 1 week. So: if the demand for onions is there, it will be filled to the left or to the right.
The season is already a few months old. The start was special, because after an extremely early stop, demand got off to a slow start. In addition, the period of short-time working lasted a long time. Now it's time to dust, instead of cleaning up. This season has its own worries. Last year offered opportunities to throw 6. Some even managed to do that more often. It is difficult to say which price level should be compared with a 6 this year. However, if you don't throw, you'll never find out.
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