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Journalism of Courage
ON the surface, it is a simple demand and supply equation. Demand more than supply, prices rise. Abundant supply, prices drop. But peel the first layer of the politically volatile onion and the pungent odour of farmers8217; despair, consumers8217; anger and total mismanagement will overwhelm you.
Consider this. Today, when desperate onion farmers of Maharashtra are distress selling their crop for as low as 50 paise per kg, down South, the onion is selling at seasonal highs. While the farmer of Maharashtra is taking home an average of Rs 200 per quintal, his counterparts in the south are reaping their harvest at almost Rs 800 per quintal.
Asia8217;s largest Lasalgaon mandi in Nashik saw prices average out at Rs 307 per quintal in January 2006 and drop further in February. But on December 12, 2005, when the 8216;8216;consumer affairs committee with representatives from the agricultural departments8217;8217; met in New Delhi, crashing prices was not on their mind. Instead, their mandate was to review the onion situation and come up with 8216;8216;recommendations for avoiding abrupt rise in prices8217;8217;.
Ironically, it was exactly around this time that the downward slide in prices had started in the country8217;s largest onion growing state. It was also the time that 29-year-old Somnath Abaji Gangurde of Redgaon Khurd village was checking to see if his onions were ready for harvest. And 25 odd km away in Shingwe village, Punamchand Masu Khatad was doing the same.
Both farmers waited a month and then harvested their onions. Both needed money desperately and hoped that despite the crash in prices they would make some money at the mandi to pay off loans, buy food. Neither did.
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Know your onions |
Khatad got Rs 382 in hand for his seven quintal, which he promptly money ordered to President APJ Abdul Kalam saying it was 8216;8216;not enough for anything8217;8217;. Gangurde became the first onion farmer to commit suicide. He left behind a note to his wife with details of all the money he owed people including the milkman 8212; from Rs 11 to Rs 10,000.
CAUGHT in the annual onion melodrama, Khatad and Gangurde did what most farmers do. In October, when they were going to sow their late kharif onion seedlings, a stop gap shortage in the mandis was slowly pushing prices up. Heavy rains had destroyed a lot of the kharif crop, creating a shortage in the market and prices in Lasalgaon crossed the Rs 1,000 per quintal mark.
8216;8216;Few farmers made a killing and the rest wanted to try their luck,8217;8217; says Kalyan Rao Patil, former president of Lasalgaon8217;s APMC and ex-Shiv Sena MLA. 8216;8216;Seeing them, other farmers increased their area under production. It is like a lottery.8217;8217; As the prices went up last season, so did the area under onions and conservative estimates have indicated a 10 per cent increase in the present harvest. It has been like this a long time. Sowing is planned according to the previous season8217;s mandi rates. Earlier it worked well, but since 1998 when the government was overwhelmed by the Rs 50 per kg figure, prices have never been the same again.
The mandis have become extremely volatile, exposing farmers to highs and lows that are annually making and breaking fortunes. To make matters worse, onion is being harvested in more fields across the country now.
8216;8216;Slowly Maharashtra has lost its monopoly with Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Bihar and many other states increasing their onion production,8217;8217; says Patil.
WITH no crop pattern policy in place, agriculture officials say that there is no way they can control how much onion is sown. Based on this ground reality, Nashik based National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation NHRDF has predicted a worsening of the Maharashtra crisis in their latest report.
Nobody has even blinked yet. Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar hasn8217;t made any rash promises, leaving all the big talk to clueless Maharashtra government ministers instead. State marketing minister Harshwardhan Patil has grandly announced that four lakh metric tonnes would be exported to tide over the present crisis. Patil would like us to believe that there is a huge demand for pungent Indian onions overseas. On ground, everyone wants to know who and where this demand has been generated.
The most practical, short-term solution comes from NHRDF director Dr R.P. Gupta. 8216;8216;The south needs onions as they wait for their next crop to be harvested and both Maharashtra and Gujarat have plenty. Help farmers ship their goods down South and the problem will reduce,8217;8217; he says matter-of-factly.
