Nashik, Maharashtra; In state producing most onions, 60% grown here
Nashik: As Santosh Gorade, 38, tends to his 3.5 acres of onion crop, he says he will do this for “maximum six-seven years more”. After that, the farmer from Takli Vinchur village in Nashik plans to get out of farming. “It’s too volatile and market forces are always against us,” he sighs. Under no circumstances, he adds, does he want his two sons, Pranav, 10, and Karanvir, 5, to take up farming. “There is no future in this.”
In the past two years, this volatility in the markets has left onion farmers battling penury. Maharashtra is the largest producer of onions in the country, contributing 30 per cent of the total, while Nashik accounts for 60 per cent of the onion area in the state. Nearby Lasalgaon is the largest wholesale onion market in the country.
Gorade says the Budget this year, with its Operation Greens, or PM Modi’s TOP talk, mean little, when the biggest villain for onion farmers is the government. Regimes have been known to fall on onion prices, and farmers complain of the government repeatedly intervening to bring prices down in times of flush, and staying silent when prices plunge.
“Before launching Operation Greens, someone should explain why onion keeps being put under the Essential Commodities Act. This allows the government to declare stock limits and intervene for price manipulation,” says Gorade. “We know onion is a politically sensitive crop, but the farmer too must be thought of.”
Before the Gujarat elections in December 2017, the Minimum Export Price (MEP) of onion was set at a whopping $850 per tonne, a move meant to discourage exports to stabilise prices. Dipak Pagar, director of the Nampur wholesale market in Nashik, says, “Days earlier to it, the average traded price of onion was around Rs 35 per kg. After the MEP, prices corrected to Rs 25-24 per kg.”
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