A bumper rabi onion crop is likely this season at around 110 lakh tonne, around 10% more than the previous year’s rabi season, top officials at National Horticultural and Research Development Foundation (NHRDF) said. Although rains played spoilsport in the last two to three days, damaging the late kharif onion at Nashik, the rabi onion which is yet to be harvested has been spared a major portion of the damage,officials said.
The country produces 160-170 lakh metric tonne of onion annually — 50% comes during the rabi season (April-May), 30% in late kharif season (January-February), and 20% in kharif time. Although senior officials at Lasalgaon in Nashik — one of the main onion producing belts — maintained that the recent rains damaged the onion crop to the tune of 50%, RP Gupta, director, NHRDF, pointed out that around 80% of the late kharif crop has already been harvested and only 20% is still standing in the fields. It is this 20% that has been impacted and the impact cannot be described as a major hit on the total crop, Gupta said.
The late kharif onion will continue to arrive in the markets till the end of March from markets in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and rabi onions will begin arriving in markets next month onwards, he said.
The Small Farmers AgriBusiness Consortium’s monthly onion and potato report has also given estimates along the same lines saying the rabi onion production this year under normal condition is estimated to be 95.55 lakh tonne. It could vary between 95 and 100 lakh tonne.
According to the March NHRDF onion report, in the first estimate of the ministry of agriculture, the area and production of onion is estimated as 11.92 lakhs hectares and 193.57 lakhs metric tonne, respectively, which is a little less in comparison with the previous year area and production i.e. 12.04 lakh hectares and 194.02 lakh metric tonne. Rabi onion planting in the current season till February 19, 2015, has been completed on 5.70 lakh hectares area, which is 12% more compared to last year’s rabi onion area of 5.07 lakh hectares in the major rabi onion growing states, as per information available with the horticulture division, DAC.
Onion is coming in the market presently from the harvest of late kharif onion grown in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The harvesting of rabi onion will start from mid-March onwards in different parts of the country. The crop condition of late kharif and rabi onions is at present good. Recent rains, particularly in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, may have some affect on the harvesting of late kharif onion crop.
