PUNE: Onion prices often hit headlines for their soaring prices. To combat this, the Maha Farmers Producer Company (Maha-FPC), a state-level supporter for the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) has procured 25,000 metric tonnes (MT) of onions from Maharashtra. This is 50 per cent of the national procurement level fixed for onions. Now, Maha-FPC will be selling them directly to retailers.
“In March we received instructions to procure 25,000 MT of onions in 12 weeks. We procured onions from seven districts: Nashik, Pune, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Solapur, Osmanabad and Jalna. We connected with 39 farmer producer companies who helped us in procuring onions from 3,500 small and marginal farmers,” said Maha-FPC Managing Director Yogesh Thorat.
“Onions play an important role in food inflation. From August to October, we mostly consume onions grown during the rabi season. The onions produced during the kharif season are highly perishable due to the monsoon. There are chances of artificial scarcity and price rise in these months and thus to control the prices, the government procured the onions,” added Thorat.
Last year, in mid-October, onion prices at Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee, the wholesale prices ruled at Rs 22-23 per kg due to tight supplies. Thus, the retail prices in Delhi hit Rs 40 per kg.
“We were planning a strategic option to venture in retail. 25 per cent of the procured onions will be sold to modern retailers like Big Bazaar. One consignment of 25 MT has already left for Delhi. A pilot project will commence in Pune on August 3 and we have connected with 200 small and big vendors. We aim to sell more than 1,000 MT of onions this month,” Thorat added.
Thorat said, “This procurement helped farmers get better prices. Often the produce gets destroyed during transportation resulting in losses. Also, their overall transportation cost reduced. Now the produce is directly reaching consumers, eliminating the middlemen.”
Anil Shinde, an onion farmer from Sinnar, Nashik and a member of Devnadi Valley Agriculture Producers Company who was part of the procurement, feels this will help farmers. He said, “As our transportation cost reduces, it gives farmers an additional Rs 1 to Rs 1.25 per kg. It also gives immediate payment to farmers. The government should create infrastructure for storage like warehouses, which are missing.”
