Farmers blame govt for defiant traders

Nashik: Onion farmers have lashed out at the state government for failing to stem the traders' stir last month, which has now sent prices spiralling downward in the district's wholesale markets.
The crash in onions prices in the district Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) has created panic among farmers, who are incurring heavy losses. Much to the chagrin of a farmer, he was offered Rs 5 per quintal of onions by a trader on Monday at Saikheda sub-market of Pimpalgaon APMC.
Farmers feel the government should have taken stern action against the traders when they went on indefinite strike last month. The quality of onions stored by farmers deteriorated as they could not sell the produce for a month as there was no auction. Moreover, there was no parallel system to sell the produce. The traders bid low rates for onions during auction later.
Onions are sold through auction in the district APMCs through traders, who are granted licences. The trader fixes the price of the produce through bid. The APMC does not have any control over the prices fixed through the auction process. The APMC can take action only in connection to commodities that have minimum support price, which is not applicable for onions.
Activist Giridhar Patil told TOI, "I think both, the state government and the traders, are accountable for the present situation. The state government delisted vegetables and fruits from the APMC Act despite not having a parallel market for farmers to sell their produce in place. Traders went on strike but the government did not take any action. Farmers, who had onions in storage, could not sell their produce for almost a month."
He added, "The heavy rain and floods damaged the stored onions. Traders sold onions stored with them at the rate of Rs 1,000-1,200 per quintal last month when they were strike. Now, they have brought down onion prices at the time when farmers have huge stock of onions."
Deepak Pagar, president of Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, blamed the traders for the current decline in onion prices. "Traders are bidding low prices during auction. We have been demanding the state government to introduce Minimum Support Price (MSP) of Rs 2,000 per quintal for onions. The government increases Minimum Export Price (MEP) of onions when onion prices go up, but it did not take any measures when onion prices crash."
Nanasaheb Patil, director of National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (Nafed), said "There has been excess onion production this summer. Large quantity of good quality onions are arriving in the market and traders are not showing any interest in buying medium or poor quality onions. The government had recently decided to procure onions from farmers through Nafed, but there has been no progress in this connection."
Sohanlal Bhandari, president of Nashik District Onion Traders' Association, said, "The rise in supply compared to demand has led to decline in onion prices. There are still 10 lakh quintals of onions in storage in Maharashtra, including 2 lakh quintals in Nashik district. The country's annual demand is 1.75 crore tonnes and onions production was 2 crore tonnes. There was excess onion production of 25 lakh tonnes of onions this year. This is the reason onion prices have declined."
Bhandari added, "The state government has already delisted vegetables and fruits from APMC Act. Hence, farmers can sell their produce anywhere even though they get minimum price offer from traders. It is not mandatory to farmers to sell their produce in APMCs as per the new norms."