Last year, Ukraine harvested about 1 million tons of onions, but this year, unfortunately, production will be less - Ukraine has lost a third of onion production. This was stated by the analyst of the Ukrainian club of agrarian business Svetlana Lytvyn.

According to the analyst, this market has a high share of households in the structure of production - 89%, and only 11% is the production of farm and industrial enterprises.

The decline in onion production has several reasons at once.

Firstly, the temporary occupation of part of the southern regions of Ukraine, which specialized in the industrial production of onions (only Kherson region in 2021. produced 31% of the industrial production of onions intended for further sale throughout Ukraine). Although farms in Ukrainian-controlled territory tried to increase their own production volumes and partially compensate for the loss, they failed to completely replace.

Secondly, unfavorable weather conditions for this crop led not only to a decrease in production volumes, but also significantly affected its quality..

[see_also ids\u003d"

" In 2021. onion foreign trade volumes were insignificant: imports - 17 thousand. tons (from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Poland), export - 21.1 thousand. tons (to Romania, Belarus and Iraq). This year we should expect an increase in imports and a suspension of exports,"

Due to the decrease in supply, farmers offer onion for sale at 20-25 UAH / kg, which is on average 4 times higher than at the end of August last year. And it is not enough on the market in the fall.

However, vegetable growers plan to expand the area under onions next year..

True, the main regions for growing winter onions in Ukraine are traditionally the southern regions - Kherson, Nikolaev, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Odessa. In other regions, when growing, the risk of crop freezing is high..

Since Kherson and Zaporozhye are now occupied, the main suppliers of onions are Mykolaiv, Odessa and Dnepropetrovsk regions.

In addition, the price of winter onions directly depends on the stocks of spring onions.. Since the Kherson region, which is the main producer of onions in Ukraine and where there are more storage facilities, is under occupation, there will be little stock of spring onions.

With this in mind, experts do not have comforting forecasts for consumers regarding the price of onions..