This forecast, with reference to a survey of manufacturers, was made by APK-Inform: Vegetables and Fruits experts.
“Now more than 220 out of 350 planned companies have been interviewed, but the data obtained is enough to carefully draw preliminary conclusions on the production of the main vegetable crops of borsch set, potatoes and apples ...”, experts say.
According to preliminary estimates, professional manufacturers plan to increase onion areas by an average of 30%.
Experts emphasize that these are preliminary indicators, but the fact that the area under onions in Ukraine will grow very significantly in 2020 can already be considered final.
“A third of the surveyed producers in this segment are planning to expand the onion area in the new season. Half of the farmers do not plan to adjust the area compared to last year, and 20% of those surveyed plan to even reduce onion production, ”analysts said.
“But precisely because the reduction, according to the producers, is planned to be much less significant, the overall increase in the planting area under the crop will be significant,” the experts explained.
The reasons for the rise in prices were laid down last year: after several seasons of overproduction, farmers sharply reduced the area under onions - according to the State Statistics Service, 54,4 thousand hectares were sown.
As Delo.ua previously wrote, in addition to the physical decrease in the cultivated area, the harvest was also affected by unfavorable weather factors last summer - periods of drought, followed by prolonged rains. And if on average, according to the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, onion harvest in Ukraine is about 1 million tons, then in 2018 at least 120 thousand tons were missing.
By the beginning of 2019, stocks began to run out, and only insignificant volumes remained of the conditioned goods. After that, it was the turn of imports: in January-February, onion imports reached 35,4 thousand tons, which is 62 times more than in the same period last year.
The imported product temporarily slowed down the price increase, however, by March, import itself began to rise rapidly due to increased competition from other importing countries.