Organic Onions

Organic farming means developing a mode of production of fresh vegetables and fruits paying maximum respect to the natural resources, in order to conserve the environment and protect the consumers’ health.
Like all the varieties of fruits and vegetables that are traded the most worldwide, even onions are now grown according to organic methods, paying the maximum respect to the environment and controlling the products used, which must be strictly free from chemical substances.

Organic farming and also the production of organic onions, is increasingly part of the consumer's conscience, who is more respectful of the environment and pays more attention in choosing the cultivar.
The plant of onion, if cultivated with organic methods, needs that the soil is well prepared before sowing. The soil must be well fertilized, apart from humid and well drained; the onion suffers if there are water stagnations that can cause this vegetable to rot.
It is also important to be careful in preparing the soil to limit or avoid the problem of weeds that can suffocate the plant of onion. If weeds are not eradicated already in the first stages of the ploughing of the soil it would become really difficult to free the plant of onion in a second moment: the only way to do this, being organic farming a natural farming and as weed killers cannot be used, would be the manual method, much longer and wasteful.
Nowadays there are more and more producers of organic onions, importers of organic onions, exporters of organic onions, wholesalers of organic onions and retailers of organic onions, who embraced methods and values of organic farming.

Fruit and vegetable products coming from organic farming are produced using production methods that allow to utilize only substances of natural origins. It is an extremely important step for the consumer, as it outlines the quality of the process and of all the entities involved in the production of onions, guaranteed by the label of the organic fruit and vegetable product on the international market, with fruit and vegetable companies for the production of organic onions certified according to the EU norms as to organic farming, to the European Regulation 2092/91, later annulled with the new CE 834/2007, created to protect the environment. The label, is thus a “certification” of valid, healthy and higher quality fruit and vegetable products.

The most common varieties of organic onions are:

• BORETTANA ONION: flat variety of onion, very widespread and used above all in the industry to produce pickles, apart from being used in cuisine with second courses and cold cuts. The colour of the bulb is white with external tunics that are straw-yellow and gold. Small onion.
• The onion “Dorata di Parma” P.D.O. is round and the shape reminds of a spinning tip, it is gold-yellow, the taste is excellent as the bulb is quite soft.
• The variety of onion Vernina is instead intense red and is more flat; it is found from the end of August for all the winter period and its taste is quite sour.
• The variety of long onion of Tropea has a quite long shape, suitable for salads. It keeps well.