Survival of the driest – Olam’s innovative onion breeding program

Olam implemented a long-term selective breeding program and irrigation optimizations in California to produce onions with higher solid and lower water content. Since 2009, these initiatives have resulted in quantified savings of 9.7 billion liters of water and 20,138 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The program utilizes the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) standard and collaboration with approximately 60 local growers, including the use of buried drip irrigation which reduced grower water usage by 25%. Olam is now transferring these learnings to its operations in Egypt.

• Olam's water stewardship program in California, which combines selective breeding for onions with higher solid and lower water content and optimized irrigation, has achieved significant quantified savings since 2009, including 9.7 billion liters of water, 20,138 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, 284 tons of nitrogen, and 4.6 million kwh of power.
• The program's approach includes the use of buried drip irrigation systems to water roots directly and eliminate evaporation, which has led to a 25% reduction in water usage for growers.
• Olam utilized the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) standard, with support from EcoLab and the World Wildlife Fund, to shift its water management perspective from the production facility level to the watershed level.
• The selective breeding program faces challenges because onions are a biennial crop, limiting improvement cycles to once every two years, and because onions are considered a 'minor crop' with limited public breeding resources.

APA

Crowe, B. (2017). Survival of the driest – Olam’s innovative onion breeding program. We Mean Business Coalition. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/survival-of-the-driest-olams-innovative-onion-breeding-program/

Chicago

Crowe, Bethany. Survival of the driest – Olam’s innovative onion breeding program. We Mean Business Coalition, 2017. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/survival-of-the-driest-olams-innovative-onion-breeding-program/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Crowe |first1=Bethany |title=Survival of the driest – Olam’s innovative onion breeding program |publisher=We Mean Business Coalition |date=26 August 2017 |url=https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/survival-of-the-driest-olams-innovative-onion-breeding-program/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{crowe2017survival, author = {Crowe, Bethany}, title = {{Survival of the driest – Olam’s innovative onion breeding program}}, institution = {We Mean Business Coalition}, year = {2017}, month = aug, url = {https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/survival-of-the-driest-olams-innovative-onion-breeding-program/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }