Prices for yellow onions are slumping quite a bit this season, yet growers have not decided to change their building plans. In fact, the area even expanded a bit, according to several growers. The largest increase is in new areas, red, and early plant onions. 

 

In the period from 2000 to 2016, the onion area increased from 19,980 to 33,310 hectares in the Netherlands, according to figures from the CBS. The number of companies growing onions increased by 80 to 3,860 companies over the past seventeen years. The average area per company amounts to 8.6 hectares. That is an increase of 3.3 hectares compared to 2000, when the average cultivation area was about 5.3 hectares. Of the current area, nearly 25,000 hectares is plant onions (75 per cent). The share of plant onions, with almost 8,000 hectares, is about 24 per cent. The remaining area was sown with cocktail onions last year.

“I estimate the growth to be one or two per cent,” says sales leader Jaap Jonker from De Groot en Slot. “And that’s slightly more than I expected. Onions might be permanently in the building plans, but in the past you could still drop out if the season had been bad. There’s quite a bit of an increase especially in the relatively new cultivation areas, such as Groningen and Limburg. Onion growers have also started on the Veluwe. The growers are dedicated to the new areas, because there’s not much room left to grow for the onion areas in Flevoland and Zeeland.”

 

For De Groot en Slot, the mid-early storage varieties Hypark and Hytech remain the most important varieties, but the earliest Rijnsburger Hybing is also sold much more for the early segment. “The early plant onions were quite pricy, and there was a shortage of those,” Jaap explains. “Besides, the expansion in red onions has been considerable. That increase could easily be ten per cent. In recent years, there was a structurally good demand for red onions, in the later segment as well. Red onions have had good prices in recent years, and are still sold for 20 to 25 cent, while the market for yellow onions is slumping.”

 

His colleague Frank Druyff from Hazera is wary of putting percentages to the new plantings. “But especially the new areas have experienced expansions, and if the areas in traditional regions remained similar, there will be a slight increase. We mostly bought more early plant onions. In part because the plant material of plant onions was expensive this year, but also because of the rise of early areas such as Limburg, where cultivation is expanding. That also responds to the global market. In the past, Africa was on the market during the first half of the year, and Russia during the second half, but that second half of the season has become much more uncertain.”

 

“Our variety Dormo for storage was sold out this year. Additionally, we have Centro and Vento for the early segment, and we’re testing Fasto this year, which is an even earlier variety. Besides, we’ve invested heavily in our red programme, and have even taken over a programme of which we hope to reap the rewards later. It’s now mostly our old, reliable variety Kamal that we sold more.”

 

Jim Hoogzand from HOZA estimates the expansion to be a few per cent at most. He’s not entirely surprised the area was expanded. “What else are growers supposed to do? The building plan is pretty much fixed, and alternatives are limited. There’s some more carrot, chicory and peas here at the island, but other than that, potatoes, beetroot and grain decide the area. Demand for red onions was remarkable this year, but I didn’t sell more of them for the simple reason that I didn’t have more seed available. However, I was out of stock much quicker this year.”