Fewer farmers sow winter crops, food prices to surge

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, January 13

Food prices are set to surge later this summer as farmers reeling under falling prices of agricultural produce and poor rainfall have reduced sowing the winter crop, according to Agriculture Department officials.

Available information suggests only around half the area under the rabi crop has been sown this year. Sowing for the winter crop is almost complete in Maharashtra. “Unlike last year when 56.9 lakh hectares were brought under the rabi crop, sowing has been carried out only on around 30 lakh hectares so far,” an official said.

Apart from onions, vegetables and pulses like tuvar are grown as part of the rabi crop in Maharashtra.

Output of onions is expected to be badly affected as only around 90,000 hectares of farm land in the onion belt around Nashik and Marathwada have been brought under the crop this year. Usually, 2.55 lakh hectares of farmland are brought under the onion crop. In the Nashik area alone, only around 18,000 hectares, compared to 80,000 hectares, have been brought under the onion crop.

Onion farmers were the worst hit with prices falling to less than a rupee per kg in the wholesale markets recently. “Apart from severe losses, onion farmers also have to grapple with lack of water as the rainfall was poor this year,” says Annasaheb Donge, a wholesale dealer of onions at the Lasalgaon market near Nashik.

Traders feel that onion prices would go through the roof and stay high till the kharif crop comes in next year.