Gujarati Onion Farmers Upset Due to Low Prices

Onion is primarily grown in the districts of Bhavnagar, Rajkot, and Surendranagar in Gujarat. According to data from the State Agriculture Department, onions were grown on 34,000 hectares in Bhavnagar district in 2020-21, with the area increasing to 34,366 hectares in 2021-22.

Gujarat's total cultivation in 2020-21 was 67,736 hectares, which increased to 99,413 hectares in 2021-22. According to Ghanshyambhai Patel, chief of the Mahuva Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), 220 is spent to produce a 20 kilogramme onion and a farmer receives an average of 150, resulting in a loss of 70 per 20 kg production.

Because the average yield per hectare is 25 tonnes of onions, the per-acre loss ranges between 50,000 and 1 lakh per hectare. Mahuva is known as Gujarat's onion capital, with the largest onion market in the state.

On Monday, several BJP legislators met with Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, requesting that the government intervene to provide farmers with a support price. "The Chief Minister has assured legislators and others of the government's commitment to assisting farmers," the CMO said in a statement. However, the State has yet to announce a support price.

Prior to the Assembly elections last year, the State government announced a Rs 100 crore package for onion farmers. Local leaders and legislators from Bhavnagar and Rajkot, according to BJP sources, have been urging the State authorities to announce a package and minimum support price (MSP) for onion farmers to at least cover their losses.

On Sunday, Punjab Chief Minister and AAP leader Bhagwant Mann met with a few farmers in Bhavnagar and assured them that the Punjab and Delhi state governments could directly buy onion from Gujarat farmers if the Centre provided railway freight transport.

Mann came for a brief visit to meet with the region's distressed farmers. Earlier, Shaktisinh Gohil, a Congress Rajya Sabha member, raised the issue of low onion prices and demanded that the Central and State governments assist farmers with higher prices.

"Onion farmers in Bhavnagar and other parts of Gujarat are in dire straits. They barely get Rs 2 per kilogramme of onion. I urge both the Centre and the Gujarat government to announce MSP for onions as soon as possible. As a consolation, the government should announce subsidies for farmers affected by low prices," said the Congress' national spokesperson.