NYSSA, Ore. — The assessment fee for onions grown in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho has been cut in half.

Onion growers in the area are under a federal marketing order and were being assessed 10 cents for each 100 pounds of onions they produced.

That assessment has been trimmed to 5 cents by the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee, which administers the marketing order. The new rate became effective July 1. The assessment cut will save the average grower about $25 an acre, said Grant Kitamura, chairman of the IEOOC’s promotion committee, which recommended the assessment cut.

“It’s definitely going to save us some money,” said Oregon farmer Bruce Corn. “Every little bit helps.”

About 20,000 acres of big bulb onions are grown throughout the Treasure Valley and the assessment generates a little more than $900,000 a year.

The IEOOC’s research and export budgets will not be impacted by the assessment cut but the majority of the reduced revenue will come out of the committee’s promotions budget, which will be slashed from $635,000 a year to $250,000, Kitamura said.

Promotion committee member Paul Skeen, a Nyssa, Ore., farmer, said a lot of people thought the money spent on promotions wasn’t being used as effectively as it could.

“There were people who felt like we weren’t getting the right bang for our buck,” he said.

Kitamura said there would be a major reduction in travel and local promotions, but the committee will continue to maintain a major presence at industry trade shows and in the media.

Gone will be the feel-good type of promotions, particularly those aimed locally, he said.

“Those are effective at promoting good will but they’re not really effective for moving product,” he said. “We’re trying to get lean and mean.”

Many of the area’s 30 onion shippers preferred to have the assessment cut and do their own promotions, Kitamura said.

There has been a lot of consolidation among the onion industry’s main customers — large national retail companies — and those shippers feel it makes more sense for them to promote themselves directly to those customers, he said.

“The most effective marketing is direct,” Kitamura said. “Many shippers want to do their own promotion in this environment. We were doing business like we were 25 years ago (and) people felt it was time for a change.”

Kitamura, general manager of Murakami Produce in Ontario, said about 90 percent of growers and shippers in the area supported the cut.

Shay Myers, general manager of Owyhee Produce, a major onion shipper in Nyssa, said he would have preferred to keep the assessment as is and completely revamp the way the promotions budget is handled.

“I felt it could be managed more effectively,” he said.

He’s also concerned that having all the shippers in the area do their own promoting and marketing could fragment the industry.

“That’s the Catch-22,” he said. “I’m concerned with the change.”