Old summer onions supply short in Yangon market

There is no entry of old summer onions to the market since the first week of December 2022, according to the Bayintnaung market in Yangon.
According to traders, no old summer onions have entered the Pakokku onion market since 11 November 2022. There is only a supply of five bags of old summer onions to the Myingyan depot on 5 December and the highest price per viss (a viss equals 1.6 kilogrammes) is K4,300. A total of 111,520 tonnes of new rain onions entered the market on the same day and the highest rate was K3,300 per viss.
On 5 December, a total of 210,000 visses including around 20,000 visses of summer onions and rain onions entered the Yangon market. Big sizes of summer onions from the Seikphyu area and those of new rain onions from the Myittha area were valued at K5,000 and K4,500 per viss respectively. It is reported that there is no supply of old summer onions to the Yangon market from the time of 6 December.
The price of old summer onion (big size) from the Myingyan area was K5,100 per viss in the Yangon market on 2 December. It was a new record price in the history of the domestic onion market, said Ko Thet, a dealer. As the new record price emerged, it was the first time that old summer onion has not entered the Yangon market at the end of the first week of December.
Onions from various regions weighing 540,000 visses entered the Bayintnaung market in Yangon on 16 March 2020 and a total of 1.65 million visses entered within five days of its opening. On 17 September 2022, there were only 42,000 visses of entry. The Bayintnaung market has a monthly entry of roughly three to four million visses of onions. The cultivation and yield of autumn onions were reduced by half to the previous years, some onion traders from onion-origin regions commented.
Neighbouring countries experienced damage to onion cultivation in the rainy season of 2022. However, the main buyer, Bangladesh, which caused the price rise in domestic onions up to K3,500 per viss in 2019, had done no purchases in 2022.
The cultivation of new rain onions started when the price of summer onions rose earlier than usual. Although there were rumours about the damage of some rain onion plantations due to untimely rain, new rain onions entered markets including Yangon earlier than in regular years. The price of summer onions is still high despite a bulk supply of rain onions these days, according to the onion market. — TWA/CT