KURNOOL: Onion at present is selling in the district at Rs 72 per kg and the price may soon rise to Rs 100 per kg, said Assistant Director of Horticulture B Raghunath Reddy. The prices are based on the wholesale price of onion at Kurnool agriculture market yard.
Though the price of onion has spiralled to Rs 7,200 per quintal in the district and has made the common people unhappy, the onion farmers are a happy lot with the wholesale price of onion reaching to a record 10-year high.
As a result of this high price, farmers are bringing their produce to the Kurnool agriculture market yard in huge quantities daily, even when the vegetable brought may need 10 more days to fully mature. On an average 4,000 quintals of onion from various parts of district have been arriving in the market daily for the past few days and the farmers, as has been mentioned before, are a happy lot because following last year’s huge losses, this year they are getting very good price for their produce.
“This (Rs 7,200 per quintal price of onion) is the highest rate of this season and is also the highest in the last 10 years,” said K Seshagiri, a farmer of Chinnatekuru village in Kallur mandal. “Good days are back and this we owe to the good prices of our produce. We had faced huge losses last year,” he said. It is surprising to note that previous year onions were sold at a low price.
The reason behind the farmers getting high price is damages caused to onion crop in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha and other States due to the floods there. With non availability of onions in the above mentioned States, traders have been exporting the crop from the Kurnool market.
“As many as 80 per cent of the daily arrivals at the Kurnool (agriculture market yard) are exported to other areas,” said R Vijaya Lakshmi, Secretary of the market yard. “Suppose we have received 4,000 quintals of onions on a given day; from this nearly 3,200 quintals are exported to other States,” she said and added, “Kurnool onions were sent to Nepal recently.”
Presently, the price range of onion is between Rs 6,500 and Rs 7,200 per quintal and average rate is more than Rs 7,000 per quintal. “This hike may continue till January,” she said.However, in reality, this year onion had been sown in less area than sown during the previous year. While onion was sown in 32,000 hectares this year, during last year the crop was sown in only 25,000 hectares, she said.