Not traders, farmers turn onions into storehouse of value

PUNE: Anand Ostwal, 30-year-old farmer from Satana in Nashik district, who had given last chance to farming after having failed for a decade, is holding on to 500 quintal onions in the hope of buying a car.

“If I get a price of Rs 50/kg for the 500 quintal onions, I will get bonus amount of Rs 5 lakh to buy a car. Otherwise, I will have to drop the idea,” said Ostwal. He had produced 3,000 quintal onion in the rabi season last year and sold them in a phased manner at rates ranging from Rs 8/kg to Rs 40/kg from June till now.

Ostwal has re-paid most of his loan of about Rs 20 lakh and also regained faith in agariculture and is still holding on to his onions to fulfill his dream of driving a car. He owns three onion storage structures, having capacity of holding 1,500 quintal onions that enabled him to store the perishable tuber for five months.

He spent Rs 1.37 lakh on building the last structure of 80 feet length and 5 feet width three years ago. Ostwasl’s is not the only story.

In a drive through the onion belt of Nashik, one can see a storage for onions in almost every onion field. A sort of revolution of setting up permanent onion storage structures has created a storage capacity of 15 lakh tonne in Maharashtra, half of the total onion storage capacity of the country as a whole.

If traders manipulated the onion prices, it were farmers who decided their phased release in the market this year thanks to the 15 lakh tonne storage capacity, mainly with farmers in Maharashtra. That is why, Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar kept on saying that farmers are also getting benefit of high onion prices unlike in the past.

Earlier, it were traders who used to do hoarding of onions and would be the sole beneficiary of inflationary onion prices.

The onion storage structure is a simple structure, with a concrete base, wooden walls and roof of Italian tiles or asbestos sheets, giving ample scope for aeration and keeping away heat and moisture.

Of the 15 lakh tonne storage capacity creation in Maharashtra, 8 lakh tonne was created due to subsidy given by the Maharashtra State Agricultural and Marketing Board ( MSAMB) from 2002 till 2010. About 3 lakh tonne to 4 lakh tonne capacity has been created by farmers on their own.


“We gave 50% subsidy to farmers from the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) funds. We had to discontinue to the scheme because RKVY did not allow to give funds for onion structures. But we are again likely to get approval,” said Milind Akre, general manager, MSAMB. Meanwhile, the National Horticulture Mission has also started giving subsidy for onion storage structures.

The individual state governments have to submit proposals for taking benefit of these schemes.