Onion farmers stage rasta roko as prices plummet

Wholesale prices at the Lasalgaon marketyard last week averaged from Rs 325 to Rs 400 per quintal. However, when the market opened today after the weekend holidays, the arrivals, which used to range between 800 to 900 tractor trailors (each carrying about 30 quintals), rose to 1,170 tractor trailors. The auctions began with the average price dropping to Rs 260 per quintal.

The annoyed farmers heckled over the prices and after altercations with the traders, staged an impromptu rasta roko around 11.00 am demanding better prices. The local tehsildar and officials rushed to the spot and urged farmers to give up their agitation. However, the farmers refused to do so and blocked the road for about one-and-a-half hours.

Later, a delegation of farmers submitted a memorandum to the tehsildar demanding a support price of Rs 500 per quintal. They urged NAFED to buy onions for Rs 500 per quintal. The chairman of NAFED, Ajit Singh, who was in Lasalgaon today, took stock of the situation.

A director of NAFED, Changdeorao Holkar, told The Indian Express, that the situation would worsen in view of the bumper harvest of kharif onion crop. He said that the situation might partly ease if the ban on the export of onions were totally lifted. He pointed out that the ban imposed last year had been partially relaxed by the Central Government to allow only one lakh tonnes of export.

He said that the NAFED chairman had been apprised of the situation and he would report the matter to the Union Agriculture Ministry, which would have to take a decision on the export of the commodity. Holkar further said that the cost of production of kharif onions was Rs 300 per quintal and that of rabi (summer) onions was around Rs 250 per quintal.

He said that farmers had taken to the streets as their produce was not even fetching them the cost of production. Incidentally, the onion markets are heading for a glut in view of the bumper harvest.

According to official estimates, the onion production this year is likely to cross 50 lakh tonnes, as against the normal yield of about 42 lakh tonnes. The Central Government had imposed a ban on onion exports last year, when the scarcity of the commodity (in view of the failure of the kharif crop due to adverse weather) had led to skyrocketing of prices to an all-time high of Rs 4,000 per quintal. The ban has been partially lifted to allow exports up to one lakh tonnes.