Nashik, Maharashtra onion growers have urged the Center to announce a special offer $Rs 10,000-crore revival package, claims recurring export curbs, natural disasters and price collapse have pushed them into a severe financial crisis.
Bharat Dhigul, founder and president of the Maharashtra Onion Growers Association, said farmers have suffered huge losses over the years due to what he described as flawed export policies, spurious seeds, storage losses and other factors.
He said the Centre’s decisions to impose export bans in 2019, 2020 and 2023-24, impose 40 per cent export duty and fix minimum export prices at $850 and $550 per tonne at different periods, have severely hurt onion farmers.
He said in a statement that the central government’s move to release buffer onion stocks through NAFED and NCCF at lower rates in the local market has adversely affected prices of staple foods and caused huge financial losses to farmers.
National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited and National Consumers Cooperative Federation of India are two nodal agencies whose mission is to purchase and maintain reserve stock of onions.
Onion farmers also incurred losses due to several factors, including heavy rainfall, hailstorms, unseasonal rains, floods, drought, false seeds and crop diseases, while farmers who stored onions in 2025 and sold them in 2026 received extremely low prices.
The association demanded that the aid be transferred directly to farmers’ bank accounts to compensate for their losses. She added that onion cultivation takes place in about 30 districts in Maharashtra.
“Policies that harm onion farmers in the name of consumer welfare must stop. The Center must immediately announce a special decision $“Rs 10,000 crore economic recovery package for onions,” De Gaulle said.
Based on onion cultivation area, farm size patterns, agricultural studies and government data, Maharashtra has approximately 10 to 15 lakh farmer families involved in onion production annually, he said.
Among other demands, the association called for a subsidy scheme for certified onion seeds, 100 percent subsidy for storage sheds and warehouses, and the establishment of a special fund to facilitate direct sales from farmers, farmer-producer organizations, cooperatives and farmer-consumer associations.
The authority has sought special financial allocations for setting up onion processing industries in major onion producing districts, including Nashik, Ahilyanagar, Pune, Beed, Satara, Chhatrapati Sambaginagar, Jalgaon, Dhule and Solapur.
It also called for support to farmer-owned units that produce onion powder, onion flakes, dried onions, onion paste and other value-added products.
The association called for the establishment of an onion export promotion fund, a long-term stable national onion export policy instead of recurring export bans and duties, and a “National Onion Stabilization Fund” to provide immediate financial protection to farmers when prices collapse.
Its other demands include interest-free or low-interest loans to prevent painful sales of stored onions, special assistance to farmer production companies and cooperatives to purchase, store, process and market onions, and the establishment of an independent “National Onion Producers Corporation” to protect farmers’ interests.
De Gaulle added: “If onion farmers survive, the rural economy will survive; if the rural economy survives, the country’s economy will become stronger.”
This article was generated from an automated news feed without any modifications to the text.
