This story is from June 28, 2016

After glut, onion shortage scare looms large

The month-long delay in sowing of the kharif onions has raised fears of a scarcity in October-November.
After glut, onion shortage scare looms large
Nashik: The month-long delay in sowing of the kharif onions has raised fears of a scarcity in October-November.
Experts said the delay in sowing would push the harvesting period also by a month and cause shortage of the crop in the markets. At present, the onions arriving in the market is the summer crop harvested in March and April.
These summer onions have a shelf-life of five to six months and farmers prefer storing the crop with the hope of getting better prices.
They cater to the market till October, after which the kharif crop begins to arrive in the market. However, this year, the kharif crop may only be harvested by mid-November, which may create onion scarcity in the interim period, said experts.
"The district has still not received satisfactory monsoon. The rains have arrived in Malegaon, Satana, Deola tehsils, but it is still not sufficient for sowing of kharif crops. Farmers have not yet started sowing this year, whereas, last year, about 21% of kharif sowing had been completed till this time," said an official from agriculture department said.
The total area under onion plantation in the district is around 70,000 hectares. The kharif and late kharif crops are cultivated on about 30,000 hectares, while the plantation of the summer crop takes place on the remaining 40,000 hectares. The yield of kharif crop is 15 tonnes a hectare, while it is 18 tonnes a hectare of summer crop.
Overall, the agriculture department has projected 6.41 lakh hectares under all kharif crop, excluding onion, in the coming 2016-17 season for the Nashik district. Last year, the agriculture department had projected 6.65 lakh hectares under all kharif crop, excluding onion, cultivation. Last year, the actual area under khraif cultivation was 5.86 hectares because of the two-month delay in arrival of monsoon.

Nanasaheb Patil, director, the National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (Nafed), said, "The late arrival of monsoon will delay the arrival of fresh kharif crop in the market. Generally, the kharif crop begins to arrive in Nashik by mid-October."
However, the bumper production of summer crop may just help tide over possible scarcity later in the year. The summer onions may cater to market even if the arrivals of kharif onions are delayed by a month.
"It will depend on availability of stock of summer onions with farmers, who store onions and sell the produce as per their requirement. Hence, it is very difficult to predict whether there will be scarcity of onions by October," said Patil.
Last year, plantation of kharif crop was delayed by one-two months. The arrival of kharif crops had begun by the first half of December. Moreover, the summer crop had also been damaged due to unseasonal rains and hails in February and March last year.
This had created scarcity of onions that led to meteoric rise in the average wholesale onion prices to all-time high of Rs 5,700 per quintal in August last year. The retail prices of onions had touched Rs 100 per kg in Mumbai, Delhi and other cities, while it had touched Rs 80 per kg in Nashik in August.
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