Onion cultivation area up by 35% in Gujarat, Maharashtra

Painting a rosy picture, the government today said area under onion cultivation has increased by 35 per cent in Maharashtra while it is up by 66 per cent in another bulk producing state Gujarat in the current year.

At national level, 14.4 per cent land has been added for growing the root vegetable during 2010-11, Minister of State for Agriculture Arun Yadav said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

A total of 863.5 thousand hectares of land is under onion this year (2010-11) as compared to 755 thousand hectares last year (2009-10), the minister said. Giving details, he said area under onion in the main growing state Maharashtra had increased to 270 thousand hectares in 2010-11 against 200 thousand hectares in 2009-10.

Likewise, in Gujarat onion cultivation area increased from 43.4 thousand hectares in 2009-10 to 72.1 thousand hectares in 2010-11, Yadav added. Accordingly, onion production in Gujarat is tipped to almost double to 1.62 million tonnes in 2010-11 against 1.08 million tonnes in 2009-10, he said rolling out the provisional figures for the current year.

But, the bulbous vegetable's production in Maharashtra shows a possible decline of 11 per cent to 2.8 million tonne in 2010-11 against 3.14 million tonnes in 2009-10.Besides, area under other important veggies like tomato and potato have also shown increase in the current year.

While area under tomato has increased by about 3 per cent at national level, it went up by 4 per cent for potato, the minister said.Total land under tomato increased from 633.5 thousand hectares in 2009-10 to 651.6 hectares in 2010-11 and for potato from 1824.7 thousand hectares to 1894 thousand hectares in the same period, he added.