Onion producer farmers on Monday held a meeting at Lasalgaon, which houses Asia’s biggest wholesale onion market. Farmers demanded that the government must withdraw the 40 per cent export duty on onions was imposed last month.
Traders have also alleged that government agencies — National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (Nafed) and the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India Limited (NCCF), are procuring onions from farmers in Nashik and selling them to APMCs in other States at significantly lower prices than what the traders charge bulk buyers.
Farmer leaders said that farmers are suffering because of the traders’ strike and the State and the Union government must immediately step in to resolve the crisis.