The demand for sorted onions is good. Getting enough onion sets for the drying wall in time is quite a challenge. The weather may not be the biggest seller, but it does determine the supply.
Irrigation is something, but the regular water supply from above is not everything for the minds of many growers. Planting and sowing the onions was stealing. We are now harvesting and loading the onion sets and nothing has changed. Now too it is a matter of making the best possible use of the few dry days. 'Every disadvantage has its advantage' to quote a football philosopher. The supply of onion sets is reasonably spread out and the market is not oversupplied.
There is a considerable spread in the prices paid to the grower. For short-term delivery (say next week) the top end is approximately €25. A little further afield, sorters don't want to go much further than €22 to €23. For fully grown onion sets at the beginning of August, business is trading at €17 to €18 per 100 kilos. However, who pays what for which onions and when is still a bit of a mystery.
Risk spreading
Growers find the sorters on the cautious side, but several farmers also consider doing nothing in advance to be a risk. With onion sets, especially the later varieties, you are always in a bit of a bind. When the first seed onions arrive, interest in the onion onions quickly decreases, so it is not surprising that some hedges are made - although the price may not be entirely appropriate. Especially bearing in mind the expansion of the area in onion sets and the generally good yields in the early onion sets.
While there is still some grumbling among growers, packers and exporters are largely positive. The onions that were turned this week are generally less suitable for distant export destinations. But little by little, the further matured onions are also arriving. Demand from abroad is good. Central America and Africa are already cautiously entering the market and information is also being received from Asia. If we gradually drop a bit over the coming weeks to somewhere between €30 and €35 in the bale - which equates to around €18 to €20 ex-land - we can participate virtually anywhere in the world, according to some exporters.
Just as it takes a bit of trial and error for growers, this also applies to sorters with the bale price. The range in the DCA quotation Bale price of Onions remains the same at €40 to €45. However, there will be some more price differentiation between the size ranges. If we look a little further ahead, the bale price tends to go down rather than up. That is also usual for this time of year. It should be possible to load enough onions next week.
Read here is the explanation from DCA Market Intelligence on the new quotations.