March 13, 2015
CapitalPress.com
17
Onions provide farm with steady income
By LACEY JARRELL
For the Capital Press
Farms producing crops
in uncertain markets can
help stabilize their income
by contracting with food
processing companies, ac-
cording to Dan Chin, owner
of Chin Farms in Klamath
Falls, Ore.
“I’d rather do potatoes,
but onions give us diversifi-
cation that keeps us in busi-
ness,” he said.
Chin, who also owns
Wong Potatoes, said 20
years ago his family farm
decided to try its hand at
onions and contracted with
two food processing corpo-
rations that produce dehy-
drated onions for flakes and
powder.
Chin said that his grand-
father started farming pota-
toes in the Klamath Basin
in the 1930s. He said the
family has always grown
fresh-market potatoes — in-
cluding 16 varieties of red,
yellow, russet, purple, white
and fingerling — but the
market has a lot of ups and
downs.
Lacey Jarrell/For the Capital Press
Dan Chin, of Chin Farms
in Klamath Falls, Ore., has
steadied his farm’s income by
cultivating hundreds of tiny
black onion seeds into onions
that are processsed into flakes
and powder.
because they are pre-con-
tracted for volume and
price.
Now, onions make up 15
percent of his operation’s in-
come.
Chin said the varieties he
grows are developed by the
food processing companies
he contracts with, but they
are typically small onions
with big flavor.
“It’s really hot, but when
you cook it, it takes the hot-
ness off,” Chin said.
The varieties also pro-
duce a lot of solids, meaning
more of the flesh transforms
into flakes.
Chin plants onions in
36-inch beds, four lines per
bed. The tiny purple-and-
black onion seeds — about
the size of peppercorns —
are pneumatically deposited
one-half inch in the ground
about 2 inches apart, he ex-
plained.
Chin said he is looking
to bump up production next
year by adding another line,
for a total of five. Instead
of making two side-by-side
beds, he explained, the cen-
ter tire track will be elim-
inated to make one wider
bed.
Although
contracted
onions produce a reliable
paycheck, they aren’t with-
out challenges, according
to Chin. He said onions are
tougher to grow than many
other crops because “you
have to babysit them.”
“They are really hard
to get started because you
start from a true seed,” he
said.
In addition, for onions
— a slow-growing crop
— weed control is critical
during the first half of the
six-month season. Onions
grow vertically and weeds
can easily outcompete them.
Onion maggots pose an-
other challenge — they live
on stubble left from the pre-
vious year’s crop and bur-
row into the soil to eat on-
ion seeds.
Chin noted that part of
having a contracted crop like
dehydrated onions means
harvest starts when the food
processing companies call
for onions — sometimes
the onions are fully mature,
sometimes they aren’t.
“We start harvesting
when the company is ready
for us,” Chin said.
If the onions are coat-
ed with soil and dirt clods,
he may lose a percentage
of the contracted price, but
if the crop is clod-free and
high quality, he may receive
a bonus.
“They are looking for
a good quality onion,” he
said. “It’s pretty labor inten-
sive, but it can be a pretty
rewarding crop if you get a
good yield.”
“Probably more downs
than ups,” Chin said.
He began looking for a
contract crop to help level
that out. Chin said the on-
ions provide more stability
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