The Central government begun purchasing onions from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh to create a barrier stock to tackle any rise in prices latest during the year through the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation(NAFED).
NAFED has set a target of purchasing around 250,000 tonnes in this year, the bulk of which will be purchased from Maharashtra. Around 90% of the onion will be purchased from the wholesale markets and Farmers Producers Companies (FPC) in remaining 10% of from and other onion growing states, officials said.
The supply of Summer onions has now increased to 75% of the total supply of the onions and the balance 25% of the arrivals are of late kharif onions. Summer onions are in good prices as compared to the late kharif onions.
There are three cycles of onion in a year kharif, late and summer onions.
The shelf life of summer onions is around six months and farmers prefer storing onions with the hope of getting better prices. The late kharif onions have a shelf life of less than a month and they start rotting thereafter. Hence, farmers have no option to sell the late kharif onions at the prevailing market rates. The price trend of average wholesale onion prices are expected to be downward direction in April and May, officials said.
