Farmers have been forced to sell at prices as low as Re 1 per kg, but the Modi government’s focus remains on controlling a rise in prices.
New Delhi: Last week, Sanjay Sathe, an onion farmer from Nasik district in Maharashtra, made headlines. He had donated Rs 1,064 to the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund – the amount he had earned after selling 750 kg of onions. It translated to less than Rs 1.5 per kg. The cost of producing onions is around Rs 6 per kg.
This was not a one off. Farmers in major onion-producing centres such as Nasik, Indore, Mandsaur, Neemuch and Bijapur have suffered due to a crash in prices.
According to a PTI report, prices in Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch mandi slumped to as low as 50 paise per kg. Some farmers chose to take back their crop, others chose to dump it.
Like for all vegetables, the Centre does not announce a minimum support price for onions. It does not procure the crop.
According to data from the government-maintained price portal Agmarknet, prices in the Neemuch mandi began to crash around November 20. Prior to that, prices hovered around Rs 8 per kg, slightly more than the cost of production, but then crashed to as low as Rs 1.5 per kg.
Similar prices have prevailed in other prominent onion-producing centres in Madhya Pradesh. In Khandwa, prices crashed to Rs 2.5 per kg on December 5, while they were Rs 3 per kg in Indore.
Prices began crashing as the kharif crop of onions started arriving in the market, according to farmers in the region. “Twenty days ago, I sold 100 quintals at Rs 1,200 a quintal (Rs 12 per kg). Then, when I went to the mandi today, prices had crashed to Rs 200 per quintal,” said Mohan Pandey, a farmer from Mhow in Indore district.
Onion continues to retail at around Rs 20 per kg. “The trader makes all the profit. Farmers are at the mercy of the trader,” said Pandey.
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