On Mission 7è><a§ Onions

[Vin DSL]

I just bought a bag of the biggest, sweetest, picture-perfect, Texas 1015 SuperSweets of my entire life!!!

Dude, these 'great whites' are better than Vidalia & Maui onions, and just as good as Walla Wallas...

Kudos to the Mission, Texas, onion growers community!

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY

Texas: Sweet Onion Harvest Soured by Poor Market Prices

A glut of onions left over from last year has soured market prices for the Rio Grande Valley's sweet onion growers who are now harvesting the last of an exceptional crop, experts say.

"We were able to almost double our normal yields per acre with picture-perfect onions, but market prices are so low this year, growers will be lucky to break even," said Dr. Juan Anciso, a vegetable specialist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Weslaco.

"Unfortunately, an abundance of cold storage onions harvested late last year in the northwest states of the country continued selling into late April at very low prices. That hurt demand and weakened prices," Anciso said.

Stored onions have been fetching $3.50 to $4 per 50-pound bags, dropping what South Texas growers get for their fresh, sweet onions to $5 to $6 per bag, which are barely break-even prices.

"We can't compete with stored onion prices," Anciso said. "Yes, our onions are of higher quality, but not so good as to justify doubling the price of the stored onions. Buyers will go with the lower, stored-onion prices."

South Texas onions are planted in the fall and produce the country's first bulbs, usually a favorable marketing window. Harvesting in the Valley begins in mid-March, peaks in April and drops off by mid-May, when stored onions are usually long gone. But the glut this year even cut into Mexico's U.S. market.

South Texas sweet onions have been a mainstay of the state's vegetable production, but acreage here has been dwindling the last few years.

Some 9,000 acres were planted in the Rio Grande Valley this year, compared to almost 11,000 last year. Onion acreage for the entire South Texas region, including the Coastal Bend and the Laredo Winter Garden areas, is also down by several thousand acres, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistical Service.

Competition, the threat of a labor shortage and other factors are to blame, according to John McClung, president of Texas Producers Association in Mission.

"So many onions are produced in so many areas of the world now that it's difficult to make money on onions," McClung said. "Weather, water and labor issues all contribute to what farmers use in calculating how many acres they're going to plant."

Available labor is an especially important consideration for onion growers since sweet onions are hand-harvested, often by farmworkers with questionable immigration statuses, he said.

"Hot onions can be harvested mechanically," said McClung, "but we do better with mild onions which have a low acid content and high moisture levels, which means they are soft. We have not yet found equipment that will harvest soft onions without doing excessive damage to them."

Without adequate machines to do the work, McClung said threats of a government crackdown on illegal immigrant farmworkers helps cut into onion acreage.

And the local agriculture industry could suffer even more in seasons to come.

Publication date: 6/2/2008

If you see them in the stores - don't miss out!

[Pawel Kowalski]

Never personally liked onions.

[Frank Broughton]

yummy.... me love onions!