Farmers in distress, Maharashtra to export onions

With a glut in the Indian market, the Government has decided to step up the efforts to increase export of onions. Four lakh metric tonnes of...

With a glut in the Indian market, the Government has decided to step up the efforts to increase export of onions. Four lakh metric tonnes of onion will be exported from Maharashtra to Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East countries

State Marketing Minister Harshwardhan Patil said the state government has also decided to give a subsidy of Rs 10,000 per container to farmers’ cooperatives which export onion. The earlier limit of five containers per such cooperative has been scrapped, he added.

A provision of Rs 6 crore has been made to increase the onion storage capacity through kanda chal (onion godowns) in the state, he said. This will help increase the storage capacity by 50,000 tonnes, he said.

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Patil said during his meeting with Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in New Delhi on February 20, he would request the Centre to declare a minimum support price (MSP) for onions in the state.

This has come after farmers reported distress after a bumper crop—the price per quintal fell by about 30-40 per cent in the local mandis. The late kharif variety that is being harvested now has a low shelf life. Absence of storage facilities in North Maharashtra forces the farmer to sell at what ever price they can.

The Government was forced to take action after farmers began agitating. An onion farmer committed suicide this week after he sold his produce for Rs 2 per kg in the market, not even enough to recover his cost.

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