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Onion growers in a fix over sharp price fall

Yasir Wardad | December 15, 2018 00:00:00


Drastic fall in local market prices has put the country's onion farmers in dire straits this season.

Bulk imports from the neighbouring country has created the problem for them, said market experts.

They also said major importers and their affiliated traders are dominating the onion market, thus depriving both the farmers and the consumers.

The farmers in onion-growing districts are now busy to harvest seed onion, while many farmers have started cultivating seasonal onion varieties. Harvest of the seasonal varieties will start from the last week of January.

But severe price fall of the spice in the domestic market are affecting the farmers, added the experts.

Local variety of onion, which usually goes out of the kitchen market by the end of November, is still in the market this season. It is selling at Tk 26-32 a kg at wholesale markets and Tk 35-45 a kg at retail markets, according to Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM).

According to DAM data, onion varieties, imported mostly from India, are selling at Tk 20-30 a kg in the kitchen markets across the country.

The state-run Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) data shows that the price of onion has declined by 20-25 per cent in a month, and the current price is 50-76 per cent lower than that of a year ago.

The newly-harvested onion of 'muri-kata' variety has been selling at Tk 15-16 a kg at growers' end for last two weeks, which is now Tk 25-32 a kg at retail markets in the city.

Md Aminul Alam, a farmer at Satbaria in Sujanagar under Pabna, told the FE that he grew 'muri-kata' onion at two bighas of land.

He got 2.2 tonnes of onion output at a cost of Tk 40,000 (excluding his self-labour), whereas price of the output is now only Tk 32,000-32,500 in the market.

Besides, he has cultivated 'taherpuri' variety at another one and half bighas of land in November.

He said if the present declining price trend continues, the farmers will also incur loss by selling seasonal variety of onion when its harvest will begin in two months.

T M Rashed Khan, asst director at DAM, said large-scale import of the spice and its bumper local production have now created a surplus supply situation.

He further said onion is selling at Tk 1.8-2.5 a kg at growers' end in the Indian onion-growing hubs like Nasik. Its import cost from India is now only Tk 8-12 a kg.

According to National Herald, an Indian daily, onion was traded at only Tk 1.41 a kg at Nasik last week. The Times of India reported on December 9 that two onion growers committed suicide for losing all their capital.

Agri-market expert Prof Golam Hafiz Kennedy said onion's skyrocketing price sometimes upsets the budget of common consumers, and now it is the distressed farmers who are forced to sell their produce at low prices.

He said import of the spice should be restricted for the next five months to save the farmers from incurring further loss.

Latest study of the state-run think-tank Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) on onion market also shows that import of Indian onion is a price deciding factor of the item in the country.

Import comprises 23-27 per cent of the market for the last five years, mentioned the study titled "Onion Market of Bangladesh: Role of different Players and Assessing Competitiveness".

It also revealed the role of major players at Shyambazar wholesale market in the capital. The traders of such wholesale markets are manipulating the prices of various local and imported items.

BIDS recommended an effective mechanism to control prices by declaring minimum support price for the farmers.

Onion seeds of high-yielding variety (HYV) should be made available to the farmers timely to increase its production, it suggested.

The study also emphasised developing proper strategies in order to increase the production at state level, and sourcing onion from other markets than India.

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