After witnessing a record high a couple of months ago, wholesale onion prices in Nashik have now touched the season?s lowest, at R5-7 per kg, at the Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee. Officials at the Lasalgaon APMC attribute the drop to the higher arrivals of the late kharif crop and increased area under production. Moreover, the early rabi onion has also begun arriving from other states into the market, leading to a price fall, senior officials said.
According to BY Holkar, secretary, Lasalgaon APMC, as against arrivals of 29,000 mt for the entire month of October last year, arrivals in Lasalgaon have now increased to about 30,000 mt per day. ?There is simultaneous arrival of onions from all centres and, therefore, as we had predicted earlier, prices have collapsed,? Holkar said.
RP Gupta, chairman, National Horticulture Research Development Foundation (NHRDF) said arrivals have increased in the market and modal prices had fallen below R800 in some places, causing wholesale rates to fall to R5-6 per kg. Farmers have planted more crop in the late kharif and early rabi seasons as they were getting good prices, he said. Early rabi onion arriving from West Bengal, Orissa and Gujarat have also affected prices, he said. The total onion production has been estimated around 192 lakh mt this year as against 168 lakh mt last year, Gupta said. On Wednesday, modal onion prices at Lasalgaon touched R740 per quintal, with the lowest price at R470 per quintal.
In Nashik district, the average area under kharif and late kharif cultivation has almost doubled from an average 20,000 hectare to about 48,000 hectare.
Exports, however, have not been as good as expected even as the centre reduced the minimum export price, with just 11 lakh mt being exported this year in comparison to 12.5 lakh mt last year.