In the carrot market, demand is currently quite tame, open-ground vegetable trader Kees Heegsma from Lemmer observes. "The countries around us have plenty of carrots available. For instance, the Germans are keeping quiet and we're not hearing much from Eastern Europe. The firm agreements towards Belgium are ongoing, but free trade there is very sparse."
"Yields are very ordinary. We already saw this on the plots in Limburg, but now we're also seeing it in Zeeland and in the early plots in the polders. But despite the fact that there aren't too many carrots, demand is lagging behind and that puts pressure on prices. Now we were also a bit spoilt in the carrot trade in recent years when it comes to prices, but this year seems to be a very different year."
"The quality of the carrots is fine. Due to the wet start to the year, sowing has been quite late. So with both early carrots and storage carrots, we have a relatively young crop and it looks to be of good quality. Only the very early plots have had some structure problems due to the wetness," Kees says.
"That it's currently quiet, is also part of the time of year, but now that the holidays are over, I would like to see more activity. For field crop common carrots are currently priced around 15 cents for direct trade. The price of organic carrots is around 25 cents, but even that trade is not brisk. During other years, demand for organic carrots from Germany ran reasonably well in the summer, but that is also disappointing this year."
"And if the flushers are not busy, they will sit back a bit," the trader observes. "So I don't see demand picking up in the short term. Other years, Africa also had more presence. This was also true for onions, and as such carrots were able to hitch a ride. Meanwhile, there is a bit more movement from that region, but as far as we are concerned, we can still go one step further!"
For more information:
Kees Heegsma
Heegsma
Straatweg 74
8531 PZ Lemmer
Tel: +31 (0)514 56 92 24
M: +31 (0)6 53 24 48 28
[email protected]
www.heegsmabv.nl