The 2nd Nunhems Onion Seminar (Part II): focusing on industry chain, how will Chinese onion industry develop?

Xiang Weiyong, Nunhems China Sales Director, said that there is not yet an accurate figure of onion planting area in China. Nunhems did a market survey and made a calculation, which reveals around 1 million Mu of planting area of onion in China (70,000 hectares), of which 50% is long-day area covering Gansu, Northeast, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, 35% is between long-day and short-day area covering Shandong, Jiangsu, and Yunnan, and 15% is short-day area covering Yunnan, Hainan Island, Guangdong and Guangxi. Red skin onion accounts for about 50% of the total, yellow skin onion and white skin onion account for 45% and 5% respectively. It is worthy of note that planting of red skin onion is constantly growing over the last years.

“China has a higher chance of becoming the largest onion export country in the world,” said Jeff Boettge. Data show that China’s import of onion was 5,043 tons in 2010, and was decreased to 773 tons in 2015. Its export volume was only 645,000 tons in 2010 and increased to 870,000 tons in 2015 accounting for 16.3% of the total of the world, ranking the second in the global market, being only next to Netherlands. Jeff Boettge predicted that the output of Netherlands has suffered reduction this year, China’s export is expected to surpass Netherlands to jump to the position of the largest export country in the world.

According to information, Gansu Province has the largest onion planting area, longest onion selling period, best quality, strong influence on pricing and higher proportion of export, where onion plantations are relatively more centralized. The onion planting area of the province is about 250,000 Mu, product is exported to ASEAN countries, Japan and Korea. In the opinion of Jeff Boettge, Gansu Province produces best quality onion in the world.

Small scale plantation, increased cost of planting and the low level of mechanization are major problems confronting the development of Chinese onion industry.

“China has large number of onion growers, as many as tens of thousands, but the planting scale is rather small, the size of plantation of north China is about 10 Mu while that of the south China is 2 to 3 MU,” said Xiang Weiyong.

Xu Jianchun, a major grower, has planted over 400 Mu of red skin onion. His experience tells him that labor is getting more and more expensive, land rental charge is getting higher and higher, spending on pesticide and fertilizer is rising year by year. It is obvious that the increase of cost of plantation is causing trouble to many growers.

Additionally, onion is still planted by the traditional manual operation, which is time and labor consuming with a low efficiency. At production peak season, labor cost is even much higher. A change of the traditional way of planting cannot be achieved in a day, but requires gradual changes step by step. It should be noted that mechanization still has a long way to go.

Wang Tianli, the board chairman of Gansu Anda Seed Industry Ltd, said that the large size onion plantation farms are emerging increasingly, their demand for technology and management expertise is increasing. Growers need various technical solutions, but the labor, service and solutions at present time are obviously not able to fulfill the needs.

“It is difficult to reduce the planting cost, we need to use scientific planting pattern and apply pesticide and fertilizer in a rational way,” said Xu Jianchun.

“It is indeed difficult to reduce the planting cost, but product quality and yield are controllable,” said Pan Zhenguo, the board chairman of Gansu Qiqin Farm Product Trading Ltd. Pan Zhenguo is 60 years old now, who has planted over 1,000 Mu of onion, being regarded as a senior onion expert. For many years, he could maintain an onion planting area of over 1,000 Mu. “A grower ought to plan a reasonable size of planting area according to its management ability and risk-bearing capacity; don’t decrease or increase planting area at discretion”. Zhao Fangguo from Shandong Jinxiang Guoxin Lengcang Ltd mentioned that the onion production in the main onion production regions has declined to certain extent but onion sells not bad. He reminds growers to store red skin onion and ensure the quality for sale at good price.

China has large population, but onion consumption is small. The onion market potentials urgently require to be explored. Xiang Weiyong said that Nunhems is always customer-centric, and is prepared to expedite the mechanization of production of onion.