Hyderabad: Tje price of onions in markets here are seeing hug dip, so much so that the cost per kilogram of the vegetable is now as low as Rs 6 a some places. The huge fall comes at a time when the same was sold for Rs 50-70 a kg in the market last month.
This drastic fall in prices of onions has brought tears to the eyes of farmers who spent Rs 50,000 per acre for cultivation. Farmers, who had taken agricultural land on lease, will now have to pay Rs 20000 more as rent, in spite of a bumper production and good turnout of produce. But the low prices in markets have left the farmers saddened and worrisome.
Every year, the Sadashivpet town market sees more than 70 thousand quintals of onions, which are brought by the farmers of Vikarabad and Ranga Reddy districts.
Venkatiah, a farmer hailing from Govindapur mandal of Sangareddy district said he brought onions produced on his two acre land in the market on Thursday last week. He spent around Rs 50000 per acre on the agricultural produce, which is selling at Rs 60000 and he hardly sees any profit, which is worrisome. Venkatiah further added that his whole family had been concentrated on the production of onions from the past four months, and now they don’t see any benefit arising from it.
Another farmer of Vikarabad district, Basvaraj, said he got only Rs 300 per quintal for his onions because his agricultural produce was of inferior quality. He said this year a seed company had deceived him by giving seeds of low standard. He stated that they are getting a price of only Rs 3 on a kg as a result they are suffering a losses of Rs 20000-30000 on an acre of onions land.
Onion Market Secretary K. Lankeshwar said that he usually sends onions to Vijayawada and other Andhra Pradesh districts, but this time Kurnool has also seen a bumper production. Apart from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh districts, Maharashtra and other neighbouring states also send onions in huge numbers to the wholesale markets of Hyderabad.
One farmer appealed to the government to fix a standard selling price of the onions and build a modern storage unit so that a price balance is maintained which benefits both farmer and buyer.