Farmers, traders unhappy with onions' inclusion in Essential Commodities Act

However no MSP or concessions on rail freight have been announced yet

Farmers and traders here are concerned over the government decision to bring onion under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) without any accompanying declaration of minimum support price (MSP) or concessions on rail freight.

"To protect the interest of farmers, the government should have declared MSP for onion as soon as it was included under the Essential Commodities Act," Lasalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Chairman Nanasaheb Patil said over the weekend.

He pointed out that onion cannot be brought under the Act as this law prohibits storage of any commodity. The vegetable does not qualify to be under the ECA since onion is a commodity that has to be stored for off-season sales and there is no harvest during March through September.

"If onion storage is restricted, it will be very difficult to supply the commodity during the seven months of off-season, resulting in soaring prices," Patil said.

Both in terms of area and yield, Maharashtra is the largest onion producing state followed by Karnataka.

Under the Act, the Centre should also provide concessions on rail freight, he said.

However, the government has not declared any such concessions; instead, it has increased the rail freight by 6%, Patil said.

Further, he said, as per the Act the government can procure the commodity, if necessary, at any cost from farmers, which will hurt them as they are hardly making any profit.

"The farmers' profitability is already hit due to uncertain weather conditions and higher input costs like fertiliser, weedicides, fungicides, plant nutrients among others. So, if the government asks for onion supply at any cost, how will we manage?" onion grower BS Jadhav asked.

If the government does not take any action, he said, farmers will be forced to stop growing onions.