Onion prices rise as polls come up

In other APMCs the wholesale prices, which were in the range of Rs 500 per quintal, simultaneously rose to around Rs 750 per quintal.

According to market sources, the reason for the price rise is that the stocks of Rabi onions (harvested in April-May) have started depleting. The Rabi crop can be stored for six months and farmers and traders are channelising the supply as per market conditions to earn better prices. The price-rising trend will continue for at least a month.

Agriculture officials say the situation is particularly grim during the current year owing to insufficient rains in certain parts of the district and erratic rainfall elsewhere.

According to their estimates, the kharif yield will decide the priceline of onions as no other variety of onions are available during the lean period from October to January, when late kharif crop is harvested.

The kharif and the late kharif onions have a short shelf life of less than three months, unlike Rabi (summer) onions which can be stored upto six months.

Incidentally, in 1998 failure of kharif crop due to bad weather had created a major onion scarcity, pushing up prices to Rs 4,000 per quintal in the wholesale markets.

The Union government had then banned onion exports and included onions in the list of essential commodities. Since then, the restrictions on onion exports are periodically relaxed to allow a fixed quota of export.

Five years ago, the onion scarcity had coincided with polls in four states, where the debacle of BJP was attributed to the skyrocketing of onion prices.

Five years later, the timing of polls in four states has again coincided with lean supply season of onions, the prices of which have started rising.

Maharashtra tops the country in onion production, with an annual yield of about 14 lakh tonnes. The Nashik onion belt grows about five lakh tonnes annually. The total onion production in the country was around 42 lakh tonnes per annum till 1998.

After the unprecedented scarcity the production rose to around 54 lakh tonnes gradually over the past five years. It even led to a glut in 2001 when Maharashtra government had to procure onions at higher than market prices to provide relief to farmers and dump the commodity in ravines, thereby suffering a loss of about Rs 100 crore.