Onion farming suffers sans storage

The New Indian Express, Feb 28, 2007
Tuesday February 27 2007 10:20 IST

BHAWANIPATNA: Abundance of black cotton soil and favourable climate in Kalahandi and its nearby areas are suitable for onion cultivation. But in absence of marketing facilities and storage infrastructure, onion cultivation in the district is just limited to 3,800 hectares.

Experts, however, claim that Kalahandi has the scope to cultivate four times more than the present coverage area.

Last season, around 54,000 mt of onions were harvested in the district as per a market assessment done by the Horticulture Department. Farmers alleged that due to lack of adequate storage facilities and marketing networks, traders from outside the State take advantage of the situation.

According to sources, onions are purchased from farmers at around Rs 2 to 3 a kg and are stored by the traders and then brought to market when the rates are high.

Meanwhile, as against the production of 54,000 mt, the present storage capacity of the district is only 1,500 mt tonnes. Horticulture deputy director Dharanidhar Patra said plans to increase the storage capacity in the district was being mooted through the 践orticulture Mission Programme・ adding, small storage godowns with the capacity of 20 quintals had been provided to about 745 farmers during the last three years.

Each such godown costs Rs 16,000 and the beneficiary farmers have been given Rs 8,000 as subsidy. Besides, five bulk storage godowns with the capacity of 50 mt tonnes each have been set up in the district and are being managed by SHGs,鋳 he said.

He further said that steps were being taken to provide 300 more godowns of 20 quintal capacity to interested farmers during the current financial year.

The situation is, however, different in Chaptkhanda village under Bhawanipatna Sadar block, considered one of the leading onion producing villages in the State. A bulk storage godown of 50 tonne capacity is lying in a dilapidated condition for long. Gurudev Majhi, a villager, said that the District Supply and Marketing Society (DSMS) provided Rs 10,000 as working capital to an SHG, which was managing the godown.

However, the DSMS authorities directed the SHG to store and sell the onions when the price was high. In the process, the harvest decayed and the SHG incurred a loss of over Rs 1 lakh. Since then, the godown is not being used, he alleged.