Onion harvests run late by a month, stoke supply crunch

NEW DELHI: Harvests of the country’s main summer onion crop have been delayed by over a month in key states due to a sluggish start to this year’s monsoon rains, pushing up prices sharply in what is a lean period, multiple officials and agriculture market operators said.Prices have doubled in some cities between August and now, including in Delhi, Jammu, Patna and Gurugram. Usual retail rates of ~25-30 a kg have gone up to ~60-80 a kg, according to market data.

The main summer crop, sown in May-June and harvested in October-November, accounts for just 15% of the country’s annual output. Yet, this crop is critical because it replenishes markets, which generally run out stocks from the previous harvest around this time of the year.

This lean period is usually made good by onion stocks specifically set aside to tide over seasonal shortages, known as stored onions, but when the wait for new harvests gets longer, as is currently the case, prices rise.

A poor start to the monsoon pushed back sowing in the largest onion growing state, Maharashtra, along with states such as Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. Skewed rainfall — first scanty, then excess — upended sowing patterns, officials said.

The June-September monsoon was 33% deficient in June, but ended up being 4% excess by midSeptember, according to data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

“In Maharashtra, sowing was delayed due to drought. Then floods (happened). Summer output is likely to be less by 10-15%. That’s the feedback we have given to the Centre,” said Shirish Jamdade, the joint director of the state’s Pune-headquartered horticulture department.

A central government team from New Delhi last week visited key onion-trading sites, including Lasalgoan in Nashik district, which is Asia’s largest onion wholesale market. Jamdade said a 10-15% smaller crop would “proportionately reduce output”.

“The good thing is we are definitely going to see a robust winter crop because late rains have increased groundwater levels,” an official of state-run National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation said on condition of anonymity.