Prices for South African onions are smashing records

Now, potato prices are extremely low while onions are minting it: the price for a 10kg bag of onions is triple that of last year, says Kobus Pienaar of GROW Port Natal at the Durban municipal market. The onion market is transitioning from Limpopo to the Northern Cape and Western Free State at the moment and it's expected prices will remain buoyant until Christmas, traditionally a strong onion sales period. An onion field under pivot in Limpopo Province Lower available volumes mean that onions are selling for as much as R115 (6.4 euros) for a 10kg bag, or over R10 (0.5 euro) per kilogram in central South Africa, prices as high as anyone can remember. Around a year ago, the onion price was R3 per kilogram. On the coast, transport costs push up the price of a 10kg bag even higher by between R6 (0.3 euro) and R10 (0.55 euro), Kobus says; in the past that difference used to be R2 to R4. Kobus explains that the usual course of the onion campaign played out differently this year: the ...