Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
Odesa farmers do not hurry to sell the newly harvested onion despite of the production growth
The mass harvesting of medium onion varieties goes on in Odesa oblast, according to the information provided by Victoria Chebotaryova, the Marketing Specialist of Odesa office, Agricultural Marketing Project (AMP). Onion ripened 1-2 weeks later than a year ago because of the cooler weather in spring and early summer. At the same time, to the opinion of Valentina Kotsur, the Agronomist of Odesa AMP office, this year the weather conditions were more favorable for this crop than before, and those producers who held to the protection technologies (mainly against mildew) harvested in average 20% more onion per hectare. At the same time rather frequently the producers were not able to protect onion plantings in time and had a significantly lower yield.
According to the data of the retail price monitoring on the central Privoz market in Odesa, the price on bulb onion during summer was significantly higher comparing to the same period a year ago. This situation is observed for now. The wholesale purchase price on onion is fluctuating now within USD 0.13-0.18/kg depending from the variety and quality of the commodity. The price is higher USD 0.03-0.05/kg than a year ago.
As some large producers of high quality commodities say, they are not going to sell onion right now, waiting for a better price. Besides, the newly harvested onion is expected to be stored much better than in the previous year.
We'll remind that Odesa oblast is the leader of the onion production in Ukraine. According to the AMP assessments, one third of the total onion supplies to the other regions is performed out here. The significant onion overproduction is traditionally observed in Cherkasy, Mykolaiv, Kyrovograd, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya oblasts. According to the AMP data, the onion acreage was a top record in 2005, it increase the past year data on 12%.