Every day, around 3 p.m.,
hundreds of lorries loaded with onions queue up at the new agricultural market
complex at Lasalgaon, around 45 km from Nashik, waiting for the afternoon
auction to begin.
As a group of traders
approach, the farmers drop their produce at their feet, as if to tempt them
into bidding high. The traders halt and look over the merchandise. A market
committee employee calls out the reserve price: “400!” Eyes roll, unspoken
words seem to pass between the traders. Then the bidding starts: “1!” “11!”
“13!” “17!” In less than 30 seconds, the auction is over. The farmer gets 17
rupees over the reserve price, Rs.417 per quintal (100 kg). A pittance(small amount,अल्प भाग) at any given time, more so now when
compared to prices last year.
A trader-controlled market
No matter how united the
farmers are, no matter how hard they fight for a better price, they turn into
mute spectators in front of the traders when auction begins. The auction is
dictated by the traders with money and considerable political clout. Traders decide
the price, farmers accept it without protest.
The market complex has a
huge parking space for the lorries. Sometimes there are up to 1,000 vehicles at
a time. The otherwise deserted place comes alive twice a day. The first auction
of the day starts at around 10 a.m. and the second at 3 p.m. Depending on the
number of vehicles, the auction can stretch from an hour to three hours.
Once the rate is fixed,
the group of traders moves immediately to the next vehicle. The farmer, left
with the price decided by the group, starts collecting the onions he has
dropped on the ground. An official from the market committee approaches him
with a receipt, bearing the auction rate, trader’s name and farmer’s name. With
a receipt in hand and onions in the vehicle, the farmer then proceeds to the
godown where the weighing process takes place. As per the rules laid down by
the market committee, the farmer must get the payment before the end of the
day, which is largely followed.
After the produce is
dropped off at a shed in the complex, the traders take control of it. Workers
start segregating(separate,अलग) the onions according to the quality and
the packaging begins. Vehicles are loaded with the produce to be sent off to
cities or to different States. Traders then get into a huddle to firm up the
retail price of the produce — adding their profits — with nary a concern for
the farmer and the price demanded by him. The operation is bloodless and
smooth.
Barely breaking even
While onion is one of the
major crops in this belt, farmers also cultivate grapes, soya bean, sugarcane,
and ginger. Speaking out against the cartel of traders is not easy when the
farmer is dependent largely on the onion crop, as it may result in traders
ganging against him (or her) by dropping rates for his produce.
Official data from the
Lasalgaon Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) says that this year’s
prices — between Rs.500-Rs.800/ql., down from Rs.970-Rs.3,786/ql. — are the
lowest in the last five years. This year, Rs.1,020/ql. (in June) was the highest
rate given to farmers, compared to Rs.6,326/ql. in 2015-16, and Rs.2,626 in
2014-15.
Growing onions costs
between Rs.50,000 and Rs.80,000 per acre, and a cultivated acre yields(give,देना) not more than 100 ql. With this year’s average selling
price at Rs.728/ql., an acre’s worth of onions would get the farmer around
Rs.72,800. This sees some farmers barely break even; many lose money.
Small wonder that Milind
Darade, who owns 13 acres of land, is furious(angry,गुस्सा). “This is the only
industry where producers have no right to decide the price of their product,”
the onion farmer from Karanjgaon, Nashik district, says. “Isn’t it cruel?
Shouldn’t we get angry?” The week before The Hindu caught up with him at the
Saikheda sub-market committee, Darade was given a humiliating price for his
produce: Rs.5/ql., or 5 paisa/kg. If that was not bad enough, Maharashtra’s
Minister for Co-operation, Subhash Deshmukh, said on a live television show that
his onions were rotten. “Let me give you some information,” he says indignantly(angrily,गुस्से से), “this is the onion you eat at a
restaurant. Just peel off two layers and you would wonder whether it was really
rotten.”
Darade has preserved the
official paper from the market committee with the offered rate; he has
laminated it to ensure it doesn’t get dog-eared. He says that he was so angry
that he refused to sell his onions and brought the load, some 10-11 ql., back
to his farm to use as fertiliser. But, he says, “When I calmed down, it dawned
upon me that I must use it to highlight the plight of onion farmers.”
Supply-demand mismatch
Simplistically put, there
was a shortage last year, and this year has seen record onion cultivation. Abundant(plentiful,प्रचुर) supply has brought the
prices down. The farmers, though, are used to this kind of fluctuation. They
don’t blame the bumper crop and supply-demand equation; they say it’s the
traders who are conspiring(plot,साजिश) against them and the
government has done little — or the wrong things — to help.
To understand the current
crisis for farmers, we need to step back a little.
India has three onion
crops a year. Early kharif (the crop sowed in the monsoon) onions come to
market between October and December. Onions from the rangda, or late kharif,
crop arrive from January to March. The winter or rabi crop is up for sale from
April to May. Usually, some parts of the rabi crop are stored for a few months
to fill the gap from May to October. Traditionally, prices rise from July to
October; official data show that wholesale rates rise by as much as
Rs.1,000/ql., even Rs. 1,500, later reflected in the retail market with an
increase of Rs.5-Rs.10/kg for consumers.
In 2014-15, the onions
took a hit following a hailstorm in North Maharashtra which, in turn, affected their
storage value. With many rotting, the onions that did make it to market
commanded high prices.
Then the drought of the
summer just past played a role too; many sugarcane farmers switched to the less
thirsty onion this year. “The onion cultivation area in the State has almost
doubled in year 2015-16,” says Nanasaheb Patil, Director, National Agricultural
Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED). “Farmers hoped that
they will get last year’s rate — close to Rs.3,000-Rs.4,000/ql. — which did not
happen, as production increased in huge proportions.”
India is the world’s
second-largest onion producer (after China) with 26.79 per cent of the planet’s
land under onion cultivation and 19.90 per cent of its production. Maharashtra
is India’s largest producer, with a 32.45 per cent share of total onion
production, and in turn, Nashik district in north Maharashtra accounts for with
41 per cent of the State’s onion harvest. According to the Directorate General
of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS), India produced 203.33 lakh
metric tonnes (MT, 1,000 kg) of onions in 2015-16, up from 189.28 lakh MT in
2014-15. Lasalgaon, Asia’s biggest onion market, received around 32,680 MT in
the previous fiscal year. Five months into this year, it has received 10,874
MT.
To make matters worse for
Maharashtra’s farmers, other States — notably Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya
Pradesh and Karnataka — have reported higher onion yields.
Holding on for a better day
Aside from the production
glut(overload,भरमार), another important factor was a 40-day
strike by traders in July and August, opposing the State government’s decision
to free agricultural market committees from government regulations. With no
outlet for their rabi onions, farmers had no option but to store them and wait
for the strike to end. In addition, thanks to the low prices, some farmers are
choosing to not bring their onions to the markets, and instead are storing them
away hoping an artificial scarcity(shortage,कमी) later in the year will
pay off for them.
This strategy, however,
comes with its own dangers: that of the crop rotting or the onions sprouting.
Malti Bodke of Bhuse village points to her rotten onions with disgust. “How
long can we store them? It’s been almost four months. Once the onions start
sprouting, they lose weight, and it becomes difficult to get a higher price.”
The farmers also say that
the traders are colluding(plot,षड्यंत्र) to cheat them. “It’s a cartel of traders
which decides the rates and once the market reopened, they ensured prices
didn’t cross Rs.1,000/ql.,” says Rajaram Fafale, from Maralgoi village.
The strike gets blame for
the glut. But did trade actually stop? Officials and traders seem to want
consumers to believe that, but farmers say it never really stopped. Darade says
that opportunistic traders discreetly(carefully,सावधानी से) approached farmers and
“quoted lowest possible rates. Farmers, thinking it was better to sell, even at
a low price, rather than keep them and let them rot, did sell”.
Three years ago, when the
farmers were getting Rs.4,500-Rs.5,000/ql., retail onion prices reached
Rs.90/kg., which resulted in protests from the then-opposition parties, as well
as consumer organisations, in Delhi, Mumbai and other major cities, accusing
the United Progressive Alliance government of failing to protect consumers.
The government’s first
step was to increase the Minimum Export Price (MEP) to $1,150/MT. This made it
difficult for Indian exporters to compete in international markets; whatever
stock was available was diverted to the domestic market, which brought prices
down. By March 2014, when the late kharif crop got to market, prices had
dropped to less than Rs.1,000/ql. in the wholesale market, and consumers got
theirs at Rs.20-Rs.25/kg.
This may have played out
well for consumers, but has had other consequences(result,परिणाम) for the industry. “There
is absolutely no consistency in our approach towards onion exports,” says
NAFED’s Patil. A look at MEPs between December 2010 and December 2015 bears him
out: the figure has fluctuated wildly, dropping to $0 in May 2012, and with a
high of $1,150 in November 2013. “It only enrages our customers overseas,” says
Patil. “They are left with absolutely no guarantee of quantity and price of
onions exported from India. These customers have instead chosen Pakistan, China
and Iran, and we have lost guaranteed markets.”
Patil says that the
government’s decision to placate(calm,शांत) enraged(angry,नाराज़) urban customers has lost
it both its farmers’ support and its overseas markets. The onion, he says, is
no longer an agricultural commodity, it has become a political symbol.
An MSP for onions?
Assuming the government
has to balance the needs of consumers with those of producers, what else could
it have done to ensure that farmers get some return on their labour?
The National Horticulture
Research & Development Foundation (NHRDF) keeps track of potential harvests
by collecting information on each district. This year, despite being aware of
the possibility of a bumper crop, the government appears to have failed to take
any measures to protect farmers. The NHRDF’s estimates say the rabi onions
should be selling at around Rs.818/ql., which is significantly higher than what
farmers are managing to get. If the government chose to use its Price
Stabilisation Fund, it could subsidise the crop, paying, say, Rs.500/ql.
What the State government
has announced this week by way of relief — Rs.100 per quintal, up to a maximum
of 200 quintals, or a maximum of Rs.20,000 — has, to put it mildly, failed to
enthuse farmers. Every farmer The Hindu spoke to called the
measure not just inadequate(insufficient,अपर्याप्त) but practically a
mockery of their plight.
Fafale, who sold 10 ql.
at Lasalgaon for Rs. 220/ql., or Rs 2.2/kg., greeted the news with scorn. “Now
I will get one rupee more. What a relief!” he says sarcastically. “We aren’t
begging in front of the government. What we are asking is our right. How does
this government conclude that this much of money is sufficient as financial
aid? Who advises them? Have they bothered to check the ground reality?”
One of the major demands
the farmers have is for the government to introduce a Minimum Support Price
(MSP) for onions, as it has for sugarcane. “Why don’t the officers understand
that we are not independent and traders enjoy a free run here?” says Darade.
“Unless an MSP is announced, we cannot be sure of a certain minimum profit. Why
this neglect?”
Western Maharashtra, the
State’s sugar belt, has seen, in recent times, sugarcane farmers agitating(incite,उत्तेजित for an increased MSP. It
became an electoral issue in 2014 when the Congress and the Nationalist
Congress Party (NCP) suffered major defeats in the Assembly polls in the region
considered a bastion for both.
The Swabhimani Shetkari
Sanghatana (SSS; its name means ‘organisation for farmers’ self-respect’), led
by Raju Shetti, which was in the thick of the agitation, is now part of the
State government and Shetti is an MP. While the SSS has stage limited protests
in the State’s onion belt demanding an MSP, it has not been able to take the
protests to a wider audience. With the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena regime,
as with the previous Congress-NCP rule, the MSP for onions issue is far from
being solved.
In the village of Bhuse,
Ramdas Bodke, 65, is philosophical. “I have seen many seasons and farming has
never been easy. We know how to tackle nature. What do we do with man-made problems?
We farmers feed the world, but now we wonder whether we will have food cooked
at home.” He lapses into silence for a minute, and then his tone turns bitter:
“Did the government discuss its proposal to hike MLA salaries for even a day?
The government takes an instant decision to increase the salary of MLAs, but it
takes a long time to decide about farmers. This is injustice. But there is no
one to give justice to farmers.”
As for the urban
consumers and their agitations, farmers mince no words when the topic comes up
for discussion. Turning towards me, one of them asks, “You get agitated when
prices skyrocket, but have you ever wondered what happens when prices hit rock
bottom? Why don’t you come out on the streets demanding a fair price for us?”
courtesy:the hindu
