BALANGIR/BARGARH : Onion has been in the news for some reason or the other in the recent times. While its skyrocketing price sometimes upsets the budget of the common man, at times it is the farmers who are forced to sell it at distressed price in the absence of storage facility. There was some hope for the onion growers when a Pack House to store onion was set up in Titlagarh by APICOL. But instead of preserving the crop, tonnes of onion have become rotten. The promised compensation to the farmers remains a distant dream. The Pack House continues to remain defunct after crores of rupees were spent to establish it. It has failed to serve any purpose for the onion growers.
Earning the sobriquet of “Nashik of Odisha,” the onion growers of the region continue to reel under crisis due to the apathy of the Agriculture department. As per official reports, onion has been grown over 6,000 hectares in Balangir in the kharif season while it was grown over 400 hectares in the rabi season in 2017-18. The Horticulture department, however, has no production estimate.
Roughly, more than 50,000 tonnes of onion are produced in the district and despite the encouraging figures, the State Government has failed miserably to protect the interest of the farmers. The farmers find it difficult to recover the cost which they plough into growing onion in the absence of marketing, preservation and trading support. They are thus forced to sell it at a distressed price to repay loan they avail for growing onion crop.
Traders from West Bengal and Chhattisgarh besides middlemen are directly buying onion from the fields of the growers. They transport it to other States while the State Government is forced to procure it at higher prices from them when there is a mismatch in production and demand thus exposing the lack of clear policy on the tuber.Ranjan Putel of Sindhikela said in the absence of marketing facility, support price and storage infrastructure, they sell their produce to whoever approaches them first. As onion becomes rotten due to intense heat, they do not hold back the crop and sell it immediately after harvesting.
Although the State Government has provision to provide technical knowhow and support to store onion and more than 300 farmers are getting the help from the Horticulture department, it covers less than 10 per cent of onion growers.The indifference of the Agriculture department has taken a toll on onion cultivation in Bargarh where commercial production has been virtually replaced by own consumption. Farmers are growing onion just to meet their demands. Onion is grown over 400 to 500 hectares whereas vegetables are grown over 28,000 hectares.
Tears for growers
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Earning the sobriquet of “Nashik of Odisha,” the onion growers of the region continue to reel under crisis
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The farmers find it difficult to recover the cost which they plough into growing onion in the absence of marketing, preservation and trading support
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They are thus forced to sell it at a distressed price to repay loan they avail for growing onion crop
