Onion prices still high, farmers in Maharashtra suffer too

Onions farmers and brothers Balasaheb and Mahendra Jadhav envisaged a good winter crop, but rains had other plans for them. More than a fortnight of heavy November showers wiped out their cultivation and put an abrupt end to their hopes.    

In Dharangaon Khadak of Niphad taluka, about 35km from Nashik, the Jadhavs cultivate onions on 5 acres of land and have a vineyard on some more.

Going by past experience, they had a target of 500 quintals of onions this winter. However, after the rains, they had to pull out most of the drenched plantation, and the rest that survived, turned out to be of no use.  

“The leaves which should have looked green and fresh dried up and the attack of the Karpa disease added to our problem. The roots decayed due to excess water and the effect of that was seen on the onion bulbs whose growth had been stunted,” said Mahendra.

The two brothers have two sons and a daughter each. And they have loans worth Rs6-7 lakh.

For this harvest farmers used pesticides excessively to save whatever they can of their crop. “I sprayed chemicals for onions almost 4 times more than the normal amount. Yet, what has come in hand as yield is minimal. The cost of chemicals skyrocketed as excess use led to a shortfall in the market,” states a worker who does spraying jobs for farmers. 

Moreover, labour shortage too added to the woes of the farmers. For an acre of plantation and plucking, they charged Rs4,000, a charge never paid before. All this led to rising cost of production, but as against this, the yield has been meagre and so is the income from it. 

Farmers whose crops have been damaged are pushing themselves through all odds. “Many a times we feel this is not worth. But we are farmers; what do we do if not farming? These are trying times and we are being pushed to the edge. There are many forces responsible, nature being one of them,” said Sanjay Jadhav, another farmer.

Farmers who gathered around at the Jadhav brothers’ farm discussed the price issue and vented their anger on the traders and the middlemen.

“It is the traders and the middlemen who dictate. Nobody controls them. Why doesn’t the government buy from us at a fixed price and sell it directly to the consumers if they are so concerned about them? It is only when the consumer has to pay more from his pocket that the issue is raised. What when the farmer suffers,” they questioned.