Onion/Shallot

Onion and shallot production and trade are essential in the lives of West Africans. Many countries in the region grow onions, but only those from Niger and Burkina Faso (and Mali, in the case of shallots) produce a superior quality product for export. That which isn’t eaten locally is exported principally to Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Togo and other regional markets. Trade, however, has been adversely affected by a limited growing season, which is exacerbated by weak organizations within the value chain, and the importation of high-quality product from outside the region during the off-season.

In addition to the seasonality constraint, intra-regional onion/shallot trade also suffers from problems with competitiveness as a result of numerous factors, including irregular availability of quality inputs and equipment; inappropriate pre- and post-harvest practices; insufficient access to storage facilities; demands for bribes along the main trucking routes that increase risks and costs; limited access to market information; and informal business relations and weak organizational capacity that limit access to formal credit, dissuade investment, and reduce productivity and profit.

The value chain’s strategies for increasing the value and volume of trade in onion and shallot include:

• Expanding quality onion production and creating a year-round market;
• Reinforcing seed producers’ and processors’ technical capacities; Training producers and exporters in storage practices;
• Supporting the production of processed onion/shallot;
• Creating business linkages among actors in intra-regional trade;
• Assisting national professional organization members in promoting onion norms and accessing market information;
• Facilitating public-private partnerships ;
• Helping to design business plans and providing access to credit;
• Supporting the development of a system for collecting data on regional onion trade flow

In all our interventions, we are committed to gender equity and to mitigating potential adverse environmental effects.