Over the last week of September, wholesale prices for onions in Moldova decreased by 10-17% to 4-5 lei/kg ($-0.23-0.28/kg), EastFruit reports. Operators of the Moldovan fruit and vegetable market do not exclude the possibility of a further reduction in the average wholesale price for onions of regular quality to the traditional level for this period of the year – 3-3.5 lei/kg ($0.18-0.20/kg).
EastFruit wrote that the previous season onions in the country fell in price at the turn of summer and autumn, and much more significantly – by 29%. Traders associated this fact with the massive supply of low and medium-quality onions from farms of two categories to the domestic market. The first is vegetable growers who do not have a developed post-harvest infrastructure. The second is non-professional agricultural producers who sowed onions in 2023, impressed by the unprecedentedly high prices for this product last season.
For almost the entire September, prices for onions in Moldova remained at the level of 5 lei/kg on average. According to specialists of trading enterprises, a small but important support for the price situation was provided by the demand for medium and high-quality onions from purchasing exporters, who sent relatively small quantities of this product to the European Union countries (Romania, Austria) and the UK. However, in the second half of September, the EU market was saturated with Eastern European and Asian onions, and demand for them decreased, indirectly affecting onion purchases in Moldova. It is not clear how long the pause in the process of exporting Moldovan onions will last. Given the unclear prospects for external supplies, traders are unlikely to be inclined to pay more for onions.
