Ministry of agriculture starts study on onion futures

Study to be oriented towards farmers, their concerns and as to how they are going to be benefitted futures market

The ministry of agriculture has started a study on the prospects of future market in onion and the risks associated with it.

According to officials, the study will be oriented towards farmers, their concerns and as to how they are going to be benefitted the futures market.

Earlier, NCDEX had obtained the approval for launching onion futures but did not proceed due to difficulty in storage problem since the commodity is perishable.

The issue assumes significance as fluctuations in production of onion is becoming a sensitive socio- political issue and farmers are at the receiving end of all adversities.

When onion production cannot be reduced, there should be adequate alternatives for the farmers to reap benefit out of the crop. “When one is advising farmers not to shift to alternate crops, in case of onion, then ready alternatives should be available, be in excess production or scarcity, said officials.

Since onion is a perishable commodity, storage of this commodity is a big issue. Thus proper warehousing facility is being given priority to the extent that the ministry proposes subsidy for building cold storages. In this regard, State of Maharashtra has been asked to study the feasibility of cold storage in comparison to conventional storage.

As per the first advance estimate, the area and production of onion will be lesser at around 11.92 lakh ha and 193.57 lakhs MT, respectively, compared to 12.04 lakhs ha and 194.02 lakhs MT last year.

However rabi onion area covered during the current season is around 5.70 lakhs ha area, is 12% more compared to last year’s rabi onion area of 5.07 lakhs ha in the major rabi onion growing states of the country.

The onion is coming in market presently from the harvest of late kharif onion grown in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. As per reports of National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation, the harvesting of rabi onion, which is expected from mid March onwards is delayed and in some of the pockets crop damaged due to hailstorm in different states.

The damage to the onion bulb crop in Maharashtra due to recent rains & hailstorm in Nashik, Ahmednagar, Buldhana, Akola, Beed, Jalna, Aurangabad, Parbhani, Hingoli and Nagpur district is estimated to be around 20-25% of the total crop. Nashik district is most affected.

As far as rabi crop is concerned, recent rains particularly in Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have not much affected the rabi onion bulb crop, barring northern states especially Haryana and Punjab. There has been no damage to rabi onion bulb crop in the State of Gujarat.

However, due to rains overall Rabi onion production in the country may not be less compared to last year, since Rabi crop area estimated 12% more in the current year ends.