A heap of tomatoes. (Express Archive)
As government agencies get ready to procure onions from Nashik’s wholesale markets, in an effort to stabilise the prices, doubts remain about how many of these onions will survive the storage process. Responses to an RTI application filed by The Indian Express show that about 30-40 per cent of the bulb was damaged in storage, or due to other reasons, in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
When onion prices slide drastically in wholesale markets, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) procure onions from the open market under the Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF). Price intervention allows the markets to recover and helps in firming up prices for farmers. The procured onions are stored in onfield storage structures before they are disposed of in the urban markets.
Losses during storage and handling is a major concern with perishable agri commodities, but onion usually has a longer shelf life.
In 2016-17, NAFED and SFAC had planned to procure 20,000 metric tonnes (MT) to create a buffer stock. NAFED had procured 5,180.895 MT at Rs 8.26 per kg while SFAC had procured 12,566.572 MT of the bulb at Rs 8.41 per kg.
In 2017-18, NAFED had procured 644.24 MT at an average price of Rs 24.84 per kg.
Responses to RTI queries show that of the 17,747.467 MT procured in 2016-17, the two agencies could dispose of only 10,292.851 MT, In 2017-18, of the 644.24 MT procured by NAFED, only 338.33 MT was disposed of.
Other than the normal storage losses, complaints about quality had led to much of the onion stock being dumped.
Yogesh Thorat, managing director of MahaFPC, said one of the main factors behind the losses was the inferior quality of the produce in the market. “Hardly any research has been done to develop a variant with a longer shelf life… fundamental issues still remain with storage structures, which again adds to the losses,” he said.
Sanjeev Chadda, managing director of NAFED, admitted that almost 20-25 per cent of onions are lost due to various reason and efforts are on to reduce any further losses. “We are stressing on quality of the produce so that storage losses can be minimised,” he said.
NAFED hopes to start procurement by monday
On Tuesday, onion traded at an average price of Rs 6.75 per kg at Lasalgaon’s wholesale market in Nashik district. Prices are in freefall as a bumper crop has started arriving at the markets. In order to help stabilise the prices, NAFED has decided to procure 25,000 MT of onions from Lasalgaon and Pimpalgaon in the district. Sanjeev Chadda, managing director of NAFED, said they were optimistic about starting the procurement by Monday. “We have decided on the storage sites and hope to start operations soon,” he said.