Relieved Farmers: Nafed intervention help stabilize onion prices

The timely intervention of Nafed in procuring red onions has led to a salutary impact on the market in terms of checking the falling prices of red onions, leading to a huge relief among the farmers, reports from the Nafed headquarters reveal.

Nafed has accelerated the procurement of Red Onion from Maharashtra and Gujarat by opening more and more centers. At present, Nafed is operating 50 purchase centres for Kharif Red Onion, in which 43 in Maharashtra and 7 in Gujarat.

The agri cooperative claims that their intervention is showing positive results on market prices in both the states, benefitting onion growers of these states. About a fortnight ago, the farmers were helpless in the face of falling prices.

NAFED began procurement of Red Kharif Onion in Gujrat w.e.f. 9^th March, 2023. The Intervention is aimed to stabilise remunerative prices to onion growers of the State, said a senior official of agri cooperative.

It bears recall that recently the centre had directed National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED) and National Consumers Cooperative Federation of India Limited (NCCF) to immediately intervene in the market for purchase of Red Onion (Kharif) for simultaneous dispatch and sale to the consumption centres across the country, in the wake of reports of their falling prices.

The estimated production of Onion during 2022-23 is around 318 LMT, surpassing last year’s production of 316.98 LMT. Prices remained stable due to consistency in demand and supplies as well as export potential. However, the month of February saw decline in prices of Red Onion, particularly in the State of Maharashtra where the modal rate dropped to Rs.500 -700/qtl. The experts attribute this fall due to overall increased production in other States, reducing the dependence on the supplies from the major producing District of the country i.e. Nashik.

Onion is sown in all the states; however, Maharashtra is the leading producer with a share of around 43%, Madhya Pradesh 16%, Karnataka & Gujarat contributing around 9% of national production. It is harvested thrice a year, with cropping seasons reported during Kharif, Late Kharif and Rabi.

The timing of the harvest of onions across the country provides a regular supply of fresh / stored onion all over the year. But sometimes due to vagaries of weather, either the stored onion is spoiled or the sown area gets damaged leading to supply constraints and rise in the domestic prices.

Besides red onions, the agri cooperative-Nafed started the procurement of Gram and Mustard seed from the farmers of Gujarat.

Nafed purchased Gram at Rs 5,335 per quintal and Mustard Seed at Rs 5,450 per quintal under the price support scheme of Government of India in the state of Gujarat for the benefit of farmers.