This year, bumper crop of fresh onions is predicted to flood the state's markets by March. Agriculture records indicate that cultivation was 200 percent more than average this year and 146 percent higher than the previous year.
This implies that this year's consumers, particularly during the summer wedding season, will not be shedding tears while buying onions in bulk.
Amreli and Bhavnagar in Saurashtra are the two major onion-growing districts in the state. Farmers in this region cultivate 40% white onions and 60% red and yellow onions, which are consumed in households and restaurants. After dehydration, the white variety is exported.
Onions are being sown in 88,361-hectare areas in Rabi season, which is 201.53 percent more than the average sowing of 43,846 hectares, according to the director of agricultural data. Last year, onion was cultivated on 60,547 hectares.
Chetan Malani, a farmer from Savarkundla in Amreli district, stated, "This year farmers have enough water storage because of previous year's abundant rainfall.
" As there was no electricity owing to the cyclone throughout the summer, the groundwater remained unused, and so we also have good groundwater this time. Hence, farmers have cultivated onions this year.”
New crops have already begun to arrive in the market yards of Mahuva and Bhavnagar, the state's two largest onion selling mandis. Traders estimate that 50,000 to 60,000 bags of 50kg red onion and 25,000 bags of white onion have already arrived on the market.
Ghanshyam Patel, Chairman of Mahuva APMC, stated, "Currently, the market price of 20kg onion is between Rs.400 to 500, which would drop to Rs.200 in March and April when the full-fledged crop begins to arrive in the market." He also stated that after receiving good prices for onions last year, many farmers had shifted their focus to onions this year.
However, due to their spicy taste, red onions cultivated in Amreli, Bhavnagar, and some parts of Rajkot districts are not consumed in Gujarat. These are popular in North India, particularly in Delhi, Punjab, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Gujarat consumes a major portion of the onions harvested in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
