GADAG: Gadag district, the highest onion producer in North Karnataka, has no cold storage facilities for its produce yet. The Agriculture Market Produce Committee had constructed two buildings for cold storage, but the facility is yet to be readied.
For the present, farmers are a worried lot on how to store their crop due to the incessant rain. They have demanded that the authorities finish completing the cold storages soon. In the district alone, onion is grown in 5 lakh hectares of land, and farmers sell their crops from November to January.
Many farmers were hit by incessant rains this time and they have expressed concern about the safety of their crops with no proper storage facilities. Due to this, small farmers are selling their produce without waiting for a good price, and others are forced to rent warehouses. Onion growers face the same problem every year and they are compelled to either sell the crops at a lower price or take them to other places to get a marginal profit.
Two buildings worth Rs 9.5 crore were built in 2018, but the facility has not yet been readied.
Moreover, onion growers have been taking their produce to Bengaluru. But this time, the Bengaluru market is also giving a low price for onions. A Gadag farmer got Rs 8 as profit after selling four quintals of onions at Bengaluru’s Yeshwantpur market recently.
The high storage rent prices of warehouses at Rs 300 per day is also forcing farmers to forgo profit in Gadag district. A onion farmer said, “We have been urging the APMC officials to provide cold storage facilities in these two buildings, which have been built to give free storage for onion growers. But the officials have not shown any interest to our concerns and we have also brought this to the notice of officials at the state level.”
An official from Gadag APMC said, “We will soon provide cold storage facilities to the farmers, but many take their crops to wholesalers or to Bengaluru and we did not sense a demand. We will soon provide the facilities to them since they are now demanding it.”