Why prices are moving
Well above normalWhy are onion prices rising right now?
mostly $16.00 per 50 lb sack FOB, Aug 21, 2026, at the benchmark spec. Broadly flat for 4 weeks.
Data through Aug 21, 2026 · source last checked Aug 24, 2026 · page revised Aug 24, 2026
Cite
- Comparison midpoint
- USDA mostly / low-high range
About this data
- Source
- USDA AMS shipping-point onion FOB reports (FV130)
- Series
- Yellow jumbo onions, 50 lb sacks, Idaho-Eastern Oregon, FOB
- Basis
- FOB shipping point, low-high range
- Geography
- Idaho-Eastern Oregon
- Unit
- $/50 lb sack
- Last observation
- Aug 21, 2026
- Update frequency
- USDA reports on business days, in season
The benchmark (yellow jumbo, 50 lb sacks, Idaho-Eastern Oregon) is quoted at mostly $16.00 per 50 lb sack and has been broadly flat for 4 weeks. Idaho and Oregon shipped 461 units of 10,000 pounds on Aug 20, 2026 (USDA movement). 5 origins are currently quoting FOB prices. The market is at the start of the storage-crop season, when the Northwest harvest normally resets supply.
Onion prices at the benchmark spec have been broadly flat for 4 weeks, with no sustained move in either direction. For the current picture, see the weekly board.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | $16.00 | $16.00 | 0.0% |
| Month over month | $16.00 | n/a | n/a |
| Year over year | $16.00 | $7.00 | +128.6% |
| vs 5-yr median | $16.00 | $11.00 | +45.5% |
What makes onion prices rise
Onion prices move for structural reasons that repeat every season. Onions are a storage crop grown in a rotation of origins, there is no futures market smoothing the swings, and the price discovery happens in the daily USDA shipping-point reports this site tracks. A handful of factors do most of the work when prices rise.
The storage supply is the anchor. The Northwest storage crop, led by Idaho-Eastern Oregon, is harvested in late summer and shipped from storage into the following spring, so a short crop set the previous fall casts a shadow over the whole marketing year: once the sheds are light, there is no second harvest to relieve them until August.
Quality in storage decides how long supply lasts. Onions leave storage all winter, and lots that break down early shrink the effective supply faster than the shipment numbers alone suggest. A season with storage-quality trouble tightens late winter and spring, exactly when alternatives are fewest.
The spring transition is the calendar's built-in squeeze. Between the last of the storage crop and the first spring crops from the southern origins, supply passes through its narrowest window of the year, and the price at the benchmark spec often firms into April as sheds empty. The long-run trend page shows that shape across years.
Origin rotation can hand off badly. When a storage origin finishes early, or a spring origin starts late, the overlap the market counts on thins out; fewer origins quoting at once means less competition for the same demand, and the weekly board shows the breadth narrowing before the price shows the squeeze.
Imports fill gaps, at a price. Mexico, Peru and Canada cross meaningful volume when domestic supply thins, and the movement data shows those crossings; import-reliant stretches tend to price above well-supplied domestic ones because freight and handling ride along.
Weather does its damage months before it shows up. A heat event at bulbing, a wet harvest that hurts storability, or a freeze in a spring origin sets the supply the market lives with for months; by the time prices rise, the cause is usually already in the sheds.
None of these act alone. A rising stretch usually starts with a short or troubled storage crop, with the transition calendar, origin breadth and import flows deciding how sharp it gets. The falling twin of this page covers the same factors running in reverse.