"It has been very wet in the couple of weeks," explains Martin Tribe from New Zealand Growers. "It is not such big a problem yet as only early onion varieties have been planted, but it could become a problem if it continues into the main planting season in the 1st to 4th weeks of August. It is also milder than normal which could be a problem."
The shipping of last season's onions to European is finished and most of Asia is complete while Indonesia's is into it's second semester. Stocks of New Zealand onions are probably lower than they have ever been, according to Martin.
"Pricing has been more than acceptable this year quality but has probably suffered a bit due to the weather we had in this summer, but this seems to be in line with the rest of the world."
He goes on to say that the changing weather patterns around the world is a sign that we have to rethink our strategies. Demand for New Zealand onions from England 10 years ago was good, but they have been importing less and putting more domestic onions into the supermarkets. Overall volumes to Europe have remained stable but England has reduced by as much at 35,000 MT in the last 10 years
New Zealand is shipping more to Asia these days, but exports to Central Europe this season have been comparable to last season, possibly slightly up but this may just down to poor quality in European onions this season.
"Overall, Europe was down by perhaps 50,0000 MT this was due to droughts in the east, some late rains in Holland improved the Dutch volume and the Spanish were quite short early on with high prices. But it is very hard to predict these markets you need to watch them day to day, a week in the onion business is along time. You have to be very aware of the global production all the time," said Martin.
Asia in general has shown an increase in demand from New Zealand, Japan is down, while Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia are up. This could be to do with the situations in China and India. But Martin explains that China is very difficult to get accurate information from but volumes produced there have been down and pricing has been up from China to Japan, this could be due to a cold snap in China. Indonesian had a lot of restrictions on produce coming out of China.
"In India onions are highly political, and there are many different growing regions which can hugely affect domestic volumes and they have a lot of ups and downs in the market prices and import tariffs and duties. It can have a big impact on the SE Asian market."
"I think what we are seeing is that major players, supermarkets and traders are probably realising that they need to plan their business better, they are starting to see that the pricing structure is changing from a buyer's market to something a bit more equal. Buyers and suppliers need to be a little more open to ensure that they all have supply at one end or the ability to supply at the other end," claims Martin.
"Historically we produce a crop that generally we can market satisfactory in New Zealand, but this year there has been an under supply. We will see these highs and lows again, but to keep continuity in the supply we need to work more closely together and be more adaptable."
As for next season it is much too early to make predictions but production methods in New Zealand have made huge advances in management of product, we have always been pretty good, but the bigger players are becoming more professional in achieving quality and volume in difficult circumstances.
In conclusion, Martin reckons that weather will remain the biggest challenge for all onion producing countries.
