The onion export market in Ukraine can be quite chaotic. That is, export sales are not carried out for 6-8 months a year after harvesting the new crop, but are done in haphazard periods: a month, a week, two months. This is the opinion of the director of the Ukrainian Horticultural Association (UPOA), Fedor Rybalko.

According to the expert, this is explained by the fact that in the target markets to which the product is supplied, either competition is becoming tougher, or devaluation is occurring, or local production appears. “All these factors need to be taken into account by the exporter, and he takes them into account, either on the basis of information on this target market, or on the basis of experience in understanding the seasonality of products in the country wher he expects to sell it.”

According to the UPOA director, the impact on this crop in Holland had a great impact on the European onion market back in August last year. This is explained by the fact that the Netherlands is the worlds largest exporter of onions with an annual volume of about 1.3 million tons, selling its products to about 100 countries. At the same time, the Dutch export logistics is organized at a high level - the distance from the place of production to the place of loading in one of the largest ports in Europe is no more than 100 km.

In turn, the Dutch do not export quality onions to Poland by truck. Here, local workers manually or mechanically process it.

“The loss by the Dutch as a result of a crop failure of 30–40% of the traditional export volume last year, a quantitative indicator of about half a million tons, led to an under supply of onions to the world market, which was already apparent from September 2018. In addition, the dro in yields occurred in European countries such as Italy, Germany, Poland. A more or less normal harvest was collected only in Spain.”