The Untold Truth about Bulb Onion Farming in Kenya
Kelvin Wairimu 
When you see farmers selling bulb onions by the ton and hear how much they earn, it’s easy to dream about venturing into this business. But is it truly as profitable as it seems? Is it a good investment?
The Harsh Reality: Bulb onions are unlikely to make you a millionaire in three months. In fact, it’s often easier to incur losses than to make a profit.
What attracts many to bulb onion farming is the price. Newcomers often think that the price they pay for onions in the market reflects what farmers earn.
Unfortunately, there is a significant disparity between the two. For instance, whereas bulb onions might retail at Ksh 70 at Muthurwa market in Nairobi or Ksh 90 at Naivas supermarket, the actual farm-gate price for a farmer in Isiolo or West Pokot is often below Ksh 30.
Typically, the farm-gate price is about 30% of the market price in good seasons. In bad seasons, it can drop to below 5%, assuming you even manage to find a buyer. The Kenyan market can be extraordinarily challenging.
The truth is that prices are primarily determined by the level of supply, not demand—demand will always exist because people need to eat, come rain or shine.
The Frustrating Truth: Kenyan brokers, who don’t own any land, dictate market prices.
These brokers communicate with each other and wield considerable, albeit unseen, power. They know that farmers often cannot sell their bulk onions directly to consumers.
So, if a farmer refuses to sell to them, they simply relay this information to other brokers, creating a frustrating situation for the farmer.
Brokers may delay their responses or change collection days, trying to instil desperation, and forcing farmers to sell at lower prices.
In some cases, brokers may even request credit-based deliveries, leading to payments of only 50-70% of the quantity delivered, citing spoilage for the remaining percentage. They’ll often claim that market conditions are poor, leading to lower prices.
On the rare good days, when onion scarcity exists, brokers may act more favourably but still won’t pay premium prices. Farmers can only negotiate for better rates when they possess high-quality bulb onions and when supply is limited.
Read Also: Why bulb onion prices in Kenya are Falling?
This was evident in 2022 and 2023 when bulb onions saw substantial scarcity, enabling farmers who had good-quality produce to sell between Ksh 100 and Ksh 150 per kilo at farm-gate prices. Unfortunately, this lucrative period was short-lived. Many farmers failed to recognize when to exit the bulb onion market as supply increased.
As prices fell from Ksh 150 to Ksh 100 and eventually to Ksh 50 per kilo, many farmers held on to their produce, hoping for a miracle. This decision often led to losses, as poorly stored onions rotted away, resulting in 100% loss for those who had not dried their produce properly.
The longer onions stayed stable in price, the more farmers expanded their acreage, leading to skyrocketing seed prices. When bulb prices fell, those who held onto their crop instead of selling at the prevailing rates lost significant amounts, with fresh onions selling for much less and large quantities left to spoil.
The hard truth is that when planting onions, you do not control the market and have no influence over prices, regardless of your yield or quality.
Another unfortunate reality is that brokers can collude, ensuring that no one buys your produce. The sobering truth is that there is no possibility of becoming a millionaire in just three months through bulb onion farming. Based on my experience, it simply doesn’t work that way and likely never will.
Dark Truth 2: Market Preferences Change Daily
In the early 2000s, a single onion variety could dominate the market for five or even ten years. Nowadays, farmers must be more specific about their choices.
Buyers consider factors like colour, taste, pungency, and shelf life. They prefer varieties that can be stored for a long time, rather than those that are simply larger; the market is unpredictable. For instance, the Red Coch F1 variety was popular but later faced issues with its skin peeling during storage, unlike the Neptune F1, which does not have this problem.
Read Also: The best onion variety in Kenya 2023-Neptune f1
Another harsh reality is that cheap onion varieties, such as Red Creole, will never yield good prices. Even though they are less expensive than hybrid varieties costing over sh. 40,000 per kilo, their management costs are twice as high. Additionally, they produce low-quality onions that fetch lower prices.
There are no shortcuts here. When deciding to grow bulb onions, you must choose between hybrid varieties or not planting at all. While open-pollinated varieties will grow, they won’t provide satisfactory returns.
Dark Truth 3: Bulb Onions Do Not Grow Everywhere
Just because you’ve heard of someone making money from bulb onions does not mean you can replicate that success in your land.
If you have an acre of land filled with clay soil, planting bulb onions will likely be a waste of time. Bulb onions are tuber crops, and when clay soil dries out, it becomes hard, making it difficult for roots to penetrate and for the bulbs to form and expand. The result? Elongated, small bulb onions that nobody wants to buy.
Flood-prone areas also pose significant risks. Last year, images circulated showing acres of flooded land, which carried away entire onion harvests. Just having land does not guarantee success in growing onions.
Read Also: Harvesting small-sized bulb onions? This is why
There’s another sad truth: many people overlook the surrounding farms. The larger farms are often located in wild areas, making them prone to wildlife attacks.
While it may be said that animals do not eat onions, they can cause destruction while trampling through the fields. If you haven’t experienced this yet, hope you never have to. In dry seasons, wildlife can invade farms, pulling down electric fences in search of water. Remember, even lions will graze on grass when food is scarce.
Dark Truth 4: You Can Lose Everything to Diseases and Pests
Having a guaranteed market and good land is not enough to ensure a successful harvest. The reality is that farming bulb onions can be expensive due to the amount of chemicals needed to prevent diseases and pests. Imagine waking up to find all your onion leaves dried up just one or two months after planting before any bulbs have formed that can be harvested.
Read Also: How to control the most stressful disease in onion farming?
About diseases like purple blotch, downy mildew, and onion rust—once they infest your crops, there’s little you can do. No chemical treatment can reverse the infestation, and you are left watching your investments disappear.
Even a single hailstorm two weeks before harvest can ruin the quality of your bulb onions, leaving you with produce that no one will buy. There are no guarantees in bulb onion farming. You can do everything right and still end up losing everything.
Dark Truth 5: There is nothing like harvesting 30 or 50 tons per acre—it’s impossible.
Seasoned farmers understand this, but for newcomers, the idea of harvesting 20 to 30 tons per acre is unrealistic. The highest achievable yield is typically around 15 tons. It’s important to manage your expectations and not be overly ambitious.
The yield potential indicated for each variety is often difficult to achieve. For example, if the variety you’re planting has a yield potential of 20 tons, you should realistically expect between 10 to 15 tons.
The truth is that yield depends on several factors, including soil quality, management practices, and fertilizer applications. You cannot simply plant bulb onions without proper fertilization and management and expect an exceptional yield.
Moreover, despite the promises of quick returns within three months, bulb onions can be quite costly to produce. They often do not disclose the expenses involved. In reality, it can cost you over 350000 to produce at least 15 tons from one acre, and there is no guarantee that you will recover these costs through sales.
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