Spanish Onion Producers Are Facing Obstacles at the End of the Production Season

In April 2022, the new contracting model regarding labor came into the application. The novelty refers to the change in the regulation of the duration of employment contracts, limiting temporary agreements and establishing a framework for contracts for an indefinite period as a general rule. Since agriculture is seasonal, and the harvest period is the part that requires the most use of labor, farmers do not have the interest or ability to hire workers permanently. According to the Union of Farmers and Ranchers Unions, the legislation reduced the employment of workers with temporary contracts by 60%. New measures reduced the overall employment of agricultural workers by 30%. Additional problems were due to the changes in the use of pesticides allowed in the onion production in the EU. With the European Green Deal, the EU is increasingly tightening the conditions for pesticide usage, and the plan is to reduce pesticide use by 50% by 2030. With dimethomorph and mancozeb already banned, the active substance chlorpyrifos (used to control harmful insects) is also out of usage.

A common problem in producing onions is thrips, tiny insects which are positively affected by the warm weather for development. If not observed in time, it can cause significant damage to the onions by direct feeding and sucking plant juices. Thrips are also carriers of plant viruses and cause indirect damage infections, which there are no measures to fight, except for the eradication of the onion plant itself. Crop rotation and deep plowing can help reduce thrips populations, and intensive irrigation helps to reduce thrips attacks. Insecticide sprays should be applied as soon as the pest appears. Insecticides used for treatment are deltamethrin, ethiofencarb, lambda-cyhalothrin, and fenitrothion. Deep muck soils are ideal for onion production because of their excellent water retention, high nitrogen content, ease of nutrient management, and ease of harvest. More careful irrigation and fertilizer management are required when onions are grown on sandy or marl mucks or mineral soils.

Spain remains the second onion producer in the EU, with Netherland as the first. Although the value of Spanish onion exports increased by 7.53% YoY to USD 166.39M compared to 2020, it is still below the values ​​recorded in 2018, when the exports reached the highest value in the previous five years of USD 212.6M. With the labor law and pesticide control measures, Spanish farmers will have additional production costs. But room for profit margin is narrowing, and if no changes from the government side come, it can mean onion production will decrease in season 2022/23.