As rains ruin onion crop, farmers block road, pour onions on roads

The farmers of Dharwad and adjoining districts, who have already suffered losses due to incessant rains affecting the crops of green gram and black gram, are now further burdened owing to the rains affecting the quality of onion crop.

On Saturday, the farmers staged a protest seeking minimum support price for the produce.

Hundreds of farmers gathered before the entrance of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) yard at Amaragol in Hubballi on Saturday, parked their tractors on the road and dumped on the ground several bags of onion to register their protest against what they termed apathy of the officials and the government towards their plight.

Leading the protest, former vice president of Dharwad Zilla Panchayat Shivanand Karigar alleged that procurement centres for purchase of green gram had not become functional yet and demanded a minimum support price of ₹5,000 per quintal for onion. He also demanded a compensation of ₹50,000 per acre to the farmers of Dharwad district who had suffered losses due to excess rains.

The drop

The onion prices had seen a drop in the last week of September, especially after excess rains affected the yield of various crops and also the quality of onion. Ever since, there has been downward trend and there have been several instances of harvested onion crop getting damaged due to the continued rains in North Karnataka region.

The excess rains not only damaged the crop but also resulted in the crop being affected by fungal infections further reducing the yield in the districts of Kittur Karnataka. According to a rough estimate, 50% of the onion crop has been damaged and the remaining has been affected by diseases. Similar is the case in parts of Vijayanagar and Ballari districts.

Low as ₹100 per quintal

At APMC yard at Amaragol in Hubballi, one of the biggest onion markets, minimum price for the local variety has been as low as ₹100 per quintal and the average price has been around ₹600 in the last fortnight.  The Pune and Nashik variety is comparatively better, but the price is lower than that of last year. During the corresponding period last year, the local variety was sold in the ₹3,000 to ₹4,000 price range, according to officials.

Another reason for the onion prices not recovering is the reported abundance in other parts of the country to which onion procured from Hubballi market was sent on a regular basis.