For the last 75 years, Lasalgaon, Asia’s biggest onion market, has not taken any efforts to ensure that farmers get a better price for their produce and set the trend of better prices for the commodity across the States. As a result of this, farmers are now slowly moving away from the Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC), claim onion growers. Established on April 1, 1947, the market trades as much as 15,000-30,000 tonnes of the vegetable.
“Natural calamities, bogus seeds, water scarcity, power shortage, prices of fertilisers and pesticides have multiplied cost of production of onion. The minimum rate of ₹30 per kg must be given to farmers so that they can at least recover production cost” said Bharat Dighole, President of Maharashtra State Onion Producer Farmer Organization, on Tuesday. Dighole and other farmers held a meeting with traders and Market Committee officials at Lasalgaon on Tuesday and submitted a memorandum to APMC chairperson Suvarna Jagtap.
“The Lasalgaon market is leading onion trade for the last 75 years but farmers have hardly got any benefit with regard to onion prices. The prices farmers get at Lasalgaon is less compared to other market committees and this has been happening for years. Onion producing farmers from Nashik, Aurangabad, Dhule, Jalgaon and Ahmednagar used to come to Lasalgaon in large numbers but in the last few years these numbers have dwindled because of low prices” said Dighole.
Price control
Onion farmers have demanded that the Lasalgaon Market Committee, traders must ensure getting higher price for their produce so that other markets follow the trend.
Lasalgaon supplies onion to many parts of the country. Any shortage or excess supply here has a direct impact on retail and wholesale markets across States.
Traders in Lasalgaon say that India’s daily requirement of onion is 50,000-60,000 tonnes and the price of the bulb crop depends on its arrival in the market. However, farmers disagree with this contention saying that the traders control the market price by holding or supplying stocks of onion.