"There is a bit of an imbalance in the onion market at the moment," observes onion commissioner Machiel Boons. "A few weeks back you could still buy onions fairly easily because the sheds had to be emptied, but that supply has now cleared up quite a bit. Farmers now have the harvest in and are not so busy selling their onions during this period, also because they are now getting other crops off the land. You can see that in the market. Processors don't have a lot of stock and thus there is more demand than supply. If you get your hands on a batch, you sell it pretty quickly."
"At the low point of the market, farm gate was doing business for 7-8 cents. During that period, I expected an oversupply situation in the market, but it has not materialized. However, I do expect more supply to be released in the coming weeks. In two months, we will be into the New Year and I expect that given last year's situation, but also because of quality problems, farmers will be eager to participate in the Africa period, so there will be more supply of the market within now and a few weeks, because a few days before Christmas, you don't sell either," Machiel observes.
Machiel Boons
"You do see that there is good demand for onions. Last week, export figures were also good," the onion commissioner continues. "The price at the farmer gate is currently fairly fixed at 15 cents for direct sales, in time you can make a bit more. But for processors, this is actually too short. On average, the base price for good onions is around 20 cents and if you have to pay 15 cents to the farmer and on top of that comes commission and transport, that is not really enough. So either the base price has to go up, or the farmer price has to go down. That is the imbalance we are currently dealing with, but that is also somewhat part of this period ."
The preliminary CBS harvest estimate, which estimated the gross seed onion harvest to be 15% higher than last year, did not really come as a surprise to Machiel. "The yields are a touch better than last year. For people who are aware of the figures, this will not be a surprise. However, the quality of the onions could become quite an issue this year. For instance, many lots suffer from bacterial pressure in the outer skin. Also, especially from the later plots, there are many onions with brown centres, so we will definitely have to be alert for that."
Machiel started this summer as an independent onion commissioner with the company, Onion Radar. "Nowadays, commission agents seem to become more traders filling the positions, but I still really want to act as a pure commission agent between farmer and processor and exporter," he says. Sharp, reliable, and connecting, is, therefore, the slogan of Onionradar.com. "I want to be a reliable partner, keen on keeping agreements and transparent in communication. For instance, I have a WhatsApp service through which I keep onion growers up to date with market developments, which is proving remarkably popular."
For more information:
Machiel Boons
Onionradar.com
Mob: +31 641669970
[email protected]
www.uienradar.com