Since the beginning of the week of December 11, a downward price trend has been observed on the fresh onion market in Ukraine, according to analysts from the EastFruit. The main reason for the price drop was the decrease in demand for onions, as well as the improved supply, partly confirming our earlier warnings of potential threat of oversupply.
Since the beginning of the week, onion prices in Ukraine have dropped by 16% on average. By Friday December 15, 2023, Ukrainian farmers were selling yellow onions at 10-15 UAH/kg (US $0.27-0.41/kg). Growers are forced to reduce the price due to a noticeable decrease in demand caused by earlier price increase. At the same time, the quality of onions in storage facilities is rapidly deteriorating, which is another reason why owners are in hurry to sell.
As we mentioned earlier in 2023 many growers without any experience with onions have entered this segment. Moreover, onion production was moving to the regions where weather conditions are not optimal for this crop away from the South of Ukraine, which is suffering from barbaric destruction of fields and infrastructure by Russian aggressors. Thus, onions grown in these cooler and more moist regions often require additional post-harvest drying, and these newcomers usually do not have such infrastructure, which impacts quality and storability of onions.
Read also: Onion prices in Ukraine are up 40% since harvesting – are new price records possible?
The farmers who have high quality onions in stocks today prefer to refrain from selling them, as they consider prices to be extremely low. However, this is not the case – in local currency onion prices are currently second highest ever and in USD are the third highest.
It was only in 2022 that prices were very high and the only reason was the Russian invasion and occupation of key onion production zones. Consequently, Ukrainian farmers in 2023 sold onions at a price, which was twice as high as today.
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