Onions have been sold on the Moldovan market at “winter prices” since mid-November. There are considerably less low-quality onions that were sold “from fields” in October. They are sold wholesale in city markets for no less than 4 MDL/kg ($0.22/kg) in the last two weeks of November. As players of the fruit and vegetable market say, this became possible for two reasons: almost no imports and small supplies of onions from vegetable storages of agricultural enterprises.
Vegetable farmers note that the 2021 onion harvest “in Moldova is bad – the share of low and average-quality onions is high, but it is slightly better than in neighboring regions of Ukraine, more affected by the changing excessively rainy and dry periods”. This can explain the long period of low prices on the Moldovan market in summer and in the first half of autumn. Average prices for onion in Moldova ($0.23/kg) are low, but still lower than in Ukraine ($0.28/kg). Thus, there are no traditional supplies of Ukrainian onions to the Moldovan market yet.
In turn, large vegetable farms that took care of the quality of onions, in particular, invested in the treatment with fungicides, prepared onions for storage “until January-February.” According to the heads of these farms, it makes no sense to sell onions earlier than the indicated period, since “demand will sharply intensify in the second half of winter, and prices may double.”
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