Hundreds of onion farmers of Durgapur, Bagmara (Taherpur), Mohanpur, Paba, Charghat and Puthia upazilas of the district are disappointed over the low market prices of the spice.
Sources said the growers have started to harvest the transplanted or Dati onion from their fields again with an expectation to get fair prices of the spice crop. But the seed-onions of the last season are still available in the stock of many farmers of the district. Due to the advent of new dati onions in the field, the price of the existing seed onions have fallen abnormally in various hats and markets of Rajshahi.
For fertile, flooding-free soil, onion cultivation is popular among farmers in the district for ages. Favorable climate, easy-term loan facility and good market demand have lured the farmers to grow the item on a vast tract of land. Sources said farmers got a good yield of onions during the last season and during the harvesting time, the price of onion was also satisfactory. But, there having no facility to store onions anywhere in the district, most of the onions of the last seasons are being sprouted and shoots and leaves are emerging from those. As a result, farmers who stored onion in their houses to sell those later on are finding it difficult to get any customer of those. They are, thus, being forced to sell those at a throwaway prices incurring a huge loss.
It is learnt, in Baneswar, Kantakhali and Naohata hats, these onions are being sold at Tk 20 to 22 per kg( Tk 800 to 880 per maund). The price is very low and not even cover the one third of the production cost.
Abul Hossain, an onion farmer of Maskatadighi area under Paba upazila informed, he has some 20 maunds of onion in his house but due to very low market price he is in a fix on what to do with those products. He said, ‘The onion of last season are already in store at the houses of the farmers and the newly harvested dati onion are arriving in the markets. Under such situation we have no idea what to do with our existing stocks.’
Mainul Hossain, another farmer of Bijoynagar village under Godagari upazila informed, he has sold all the onion of last season at a throwaway price. Now, the dati onion is waiting to be harvested soon but due to long absence of rainfall in Rajshahi, specially, in the Barind region, the production of onion has been reduced to a half than they expected.
Onion traders at Baneswar haat under Puthia upazila informed onion prices remained low throughout the year in compared to last year. Last year the price of locally produced onion was very high and the government has to import low quality, large sized Indian onions to meet the local demand, Due to those imported onions, the price of onion in the local market was under control last year though the price of local variety of onion was exorbitant. Local onion farmers also failed to earn satisfactory profit last year due to importing of duty free onion from India and other countries and smuggling of those from India, informed Golam Mostafa, an onion trader at Taherpur haat. Golam Mostafa further informed, he himself also cultivates onion in his field and drew Tk. 40,000 loan from local Krishi Unnayan Bank for the cultivation of the onion. Now, due to a very low price of onion throughout the year, he is apprehending to incur loss by selling onion. Nazrul Islam, another farmer from Sakoa village of Bagmara also took the same amount of loan for cultivating onion. He said, he planted onion of Tora variety and after getting the yield, he hoped to earn a good profit but the price has now fallen abnormally and he is apprehending a loss. He mentioned, if the onion price remained less then TK 35 per kg (TK 1300 per maund) and the farmers will incur a huge loss but now the market price of onion is less than Tk 20 per kg (Tk 800 per maund) that is why they are incurring a huge loss.
Agriculture Extension Department officials of Rajshahi, however, apprehended, the cultivation of onion would be less than around 60 thousand hectares this year in compared to the last year in the district. Such less cultivation of onion is linked to a low market price of onion this year. The sources further informed, there was a satisfactory production of onion this year and the price has also fallen.
