The suspension coincided with the industry’s main export months to a critical market for the industry.
“Twenty percent of our exports go to Indonesia so we’re heavily reliant on that market and every New Zealander would have had to double their consumption if we couldn’t work through what the new regulations were.”
The vegetable is as an important crop rotation to prevent disease build-up in soils, he said.
“For onions to carry on that rotation we have to have that strong demand internationally otherwise we’ll be reducing our hectarage down to 500-1000 hectares.
“The Indonesian market with 20% of our exports is critically important. If we didn’t have that market we’d have 38,000 tonnes to be exporting to other markets or to domestic markets.”
About 85% of NZ’s onions are exported with the Indonesian trade returning $28 million to regions last year. Total onion exports rose to $172m in 2019, up by $83m on 2018.
Trade between Indonesia and NZ is equal, with exports/imports worth $1.1 billion to each economy.
Apatu Farms joint managing director Paul Apatu is confident long-term, international demand for NZ onions will grow.
“We were pretty nervous that there might be some international supply chain disruptions as a result of covid-19 but reports are that things are currently going pretty well.
The Hawke’s Bay onion grower said global demand for onions is high.
“We’ve seen export markets making decisions to secure supplies, long-term. Onion growers are doing a great job giving the world a really high-quality, healthy and great tasting product.”
