ISLAMABAD/MAHARASHTRA: Demanding higher price for onions, farmers from the western Indian state of Maharashtra have taken out a 200-kilometre-long march on Mumbai.
The protests prompted the federal government to offer financial relief for onion growers. But the farmers have rejected the proposal saying they will continue their protest, the BBC reported from Marathi.
Onions are rotting in endless rows in a vast family farm of the Namdev Thakare in the Nashik district. A farmer said he wants to save money to hire labourers to harvest the onions and take them to market because he can’t recover the costs.
He is also protesting with thousands of other farmers in Maharashtra who were on the roads after the prices of onion suddenly crashed during the last few weeks.
One of the protesting farmers burned his crop in frustration after sending an invitation to the state’s chief minister. In contrast, others have posted parcels of onions to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seek his attention towards the issue that emerges almost every other year.
Behind China, with 24 million tonnes of annual production, India is the world’s second-largest producer of onions. Maharashtra accounts for more than half of the production. About 10-15 per cent of the countrywide produce is exported to other countries.
Shrikant Kuwalekar, a farm expert, said that unexpected weather changes also affected production and prices.
Onions are cultivated in India during two seasons, winter and monsoon.
“Last year, due to heavy rainfall in July-August, farmers delayed their onion cultivation. This has caused a huge surplus of onions in March, which will otherwise have hit the market in December-January,” Kuwalekar said. He added that things would worsen in a few weeks when the winter harvest also reaches the market.
Farmers from Nashik claimed they only get 200-400 rupees per 100kg of onions in the wholesale market.
Kuwalekar pointed out that it was a complaint shared by others. Even though demand for onions was slow, the government did not have a proper policy to regulate prices in India. When onion prices rise, the government, fearing protests, often bans its export.
