At 1:30 p.m. on April 17, a group of undergraduate students identifying themselves as “UChicago For Our Future” gathered on the main quad, handing out onions to protest the 1958 Onion Futures Act. 

The 1958 law prohibits the trading of onion futures contracts, making the bulbs the only type of agricultural product banned from futures markets in the United States. 

To draw attention, the group brought approximately 100 raw onions to the quad in a large cart. They encouraged passersby to participate, saying that any student who ate an entire onion would be featured on their website. About 20 students attended the event, while others took onions as they passed through. The group also collected 131 signatures on a petition to repeal the law. 

“It’s always filled me with fury that we accept such odd minuscule policies that really are just odd market distortions,” second-year Adam Ash, a member of the group, said. “Even if one specific issue seems minute or minuscule and trivial, what matters is a combination of all of these. It’s a death by a thousand cuts to our agricultural policy.” 

The Onion Futures Act was enacted in response to market manipulation by two traders on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Sam Siegel and Vince Kosuga. The pair bought up approximately 99.3 percent of the available onion supply on the Mercantile Exchange, then took short positions and flooded the market, driving prices to less than 10 cents per 50-pound bag while making millions of dollars in profit.  

The group tagged all parties running in the ongoing Undergraduate Student Government (USG) elections in an Instagram story, but it is not affiliated with USG and is not on the ballot.  

“We’re not running for anything. We are just people who care about policy,” Ash said. He said that raising awareness is the first step toward reform. “Once we amass enough of a following, we can go from there.” 

The group’s Instagram account was later banned, which Ash claimed was the doing of “the corn lobby.”  

In another Instagram story, on the account for the Ida Noyes Party, Daniel de Beer—a candidate for USG president who briefly attended the protest—posted an “official endorsement” of the group but did not specify how USG could support repealing the act. 

“We believe that the University of Chicago, more than anywhere, has sway over economic policy,” Ash said. “There’s a nonzero chance that we can enact economic change.” 

In addition to repealing the Onion Futures Act, the group’s website calls for abolishing federal corn subsidies, arguing that such “government intervention has limited free market alternatives to crop insurance and marketing,” along with repealing California’s ban on foie gras production, ending China’s requirement for provinces to produce their own grain supply, and adding more knives in Cathey Dining Commons. 

Ash did not comment on the number of forks in Bartlett Dining Commons when asked by an attendee at Friday’s event. 

Posts on Sidechat promoted the event the night before, with reactions ranging from support to complaints about the volume of posts. When asked whether members of the group made the posts, Ash said, “[It was] not me, but I’m glad that there were concerned citizens who rallied behind the need for [repeal].” A second member of the group, identifying himself as a “concerned citizen,” said he was responsible for some of the posts without giving a specific number.