The slaughter of the consumers centring around prices of onion, the pungent bulb, is over. The noise over onion prices has been rather short-lived, as the price of the item has scaled down to the previous level at almost identical speed. The price of onion shot up by more than 70 per cent on Saturday last, following the extension of the export ban by India until March next year.
Relevant government agencies plunged into action on the following day and imposed fines on a few onion traders in Dhaka and Chattogram. Consumers have been witnessing similar actions, particularly by the officials of the national consumers' rights protection directorate in the recent past. But those have failed to produce any tangible outcome. Did it work this time? Possibly, not.
Something unusual came to the rescue of the consumers.
Onion growers' rush to reap the maximum gain has largely contributed to the fast cooling of an overheated onion market. Many growers in major onion producing areas have harvested the immature onion (murikata piaz) and scrambled for the market with their produce. The traders too have released their stock of onions fearing further slide in prices, which is very much possible as fresh onions would soon start arriving in the market. These two developments have pulled the prices of onions down to their previous level.
The ruckus, however, has brought to the fore a few issues that deserve the attention of the policymakers and need to be followed up by appropriate actions. The first and foremost of those is the production-related data mismatch. For instance, the Agriculture Marketing Directorate's data showed the domestic production of onion in 20220-21 at 3.36 million tonnes. The country imported another 0.55 million tonnes in that year. Thus, nearly 4.0 million tonnes of onion were available in 2020-21 as against the estimated annual consumption of 2.62 million tonnes. However, the data compiled by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) puts the domestic onion production at 2.27 million tonnes in the year in question. Then again, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, the country had a bumper harvest of onion (3.45 million tonnes) in 2022-23. If all the Agriculture Marketing's statistics are right, the country is self-sufficient in onion production and it should not be worried about India's decision to impose a ban on the export of the item. But the fact remains otherwise.
It is now quite clear that there exist certain flaws in the compilation of data concerning domestic production or consumption of onion. The problem with production or consumption statistics is not only relevant to onion. This is true in the case of other crops, cash or otherwise. Take the case of rice. In 2020-21, Bangladesh produced nearly 38 million tonnes of rice, 3.0 million tonnes more than its annual consumption requirement. Yet the country imported 1.35 million tonnes of rice during that year. The government usually maintains a buffer stock of between 1.0 million and 1.5 million tonnes of rice through domestic and external procurement. All these figures do point to major statistical errors. Policymakers in the recent past have confronted this problem very often. No corrective measures, however, are in place.
No plan is perfect without credible data. This is equally true for the import programmes that the government undertakes for cereals or other food items. The lack of credible data remains a sore point for planners at all levels. There has not been any serious move to improve the situation. Hopefully, there will be a change for the better soon.
zahidmar10@gmail.com