5 days ago
Early rain destroys onion crop across Maharashtra, farmers grapple with losses
Pune: Pre-monsoon showers in the last couple of weeks have majorly hit the last of the summer onion crop in Maharashtra.
Heavy rain has damaged onion crops over 3,000 hectares in Nashik district between May 5 and 21, according to a primary assessment by the state agriculture department.
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Onion farmers said that if the pre-monsoon showers had arrived 15 days later, it would have saved hundreds of quintals of onions.
Gokulsingh Shisode, an onion farmer from Malegaon, lost 11 acres of onion to rain and is running huge losses. "It was raining so heavily that the field were ruined, and all my onion crop damaged. Eleven acres of plantation can yield up to 50-60 trolleys of onions (40 quintals per trolley)," said Shisode, who now hopes for some compensation from govt.
Another farmer, Shriram Darade from Indapur, said they harvested onions from their 4-acre plantation and piled them up underneath trees. "Owing to heavy rain, we were not able to save these harvested onions, and they got spoiled. This kind of rain is unheard of in May," he lamented.
Bharat Dighole, president of the Maharashtra Onion Growers Association, said onion-producing regions in the state like Konkan, Nashik, Pune, Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Jalgaon, Amravati and Nagpur have all witnessed heavy unseasonal rain since May 6.
"Many farmers who harvested onions kept them in temporary locations for storage. These have also been damaged by rain. The exact damage is yet to be ascertained, but at least 5-10% of onions this season have been damaged," he said.
Dighole expects that the next onion planting season may begin in June itself owing to weather conditions.
The price of onions in wholesale and retail markets is low at present, and farmers fear that they will not be able to make up for their monsoon losses owing to low prices.
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"Due to the rain, purchase numbers for onions have gone down significantly, and that has led to a lower rate in the market. In the wholesale market, prices are trending at Rs11-15 per kg. Some farmers with holding capacity are stocking produce in hope of higher prices in the next few months," said Prashant Gote, head of the fruits and vegetables section at APMC Pune.
Nivrutti Nyaharkar, an onion farmer from Yeola, told TOI, "The cost for onion production is around Rs1,800 per quintal, and farmers incur losses if they get the price below that."
The average wholesale onion prices dropped by 60% in the last three-and-a-half months, from Rs3,100 per quintal on Feb 14 to Rs1,200 per quintal so far, due to a rise in supply as compared to demand.
On April 1 this year, Centre removed 20% duty on onion export — nevertheless, average wholesale onion prices were recorded in the price range of Rs1,050 to Rs1,200 per quintal since then. At present, the average wholesale onion price at the country's largest wholesale onion market, Lasalgaon APMC, is recorded at Rs1,200 per quintal, while the minimum and maximum wholesale onion prices are at Rs600 and Rs1,612 per quintal, respectively.
