It is sad yet very true that farmers in India are taken for a ride by traders. It is a common occurrence that the middle men pay the farmers so unfairly for their produce that latter struggles to even recover the production costs.
Sudhakar Darade, a farmer from Karanjgaon village in Nashik district claimed that he was given a rate of 5 paise per kg of onions by the traders. He said that he dumped the 13 quintals of the produce on his field in protest, after the trader blamed the poor quality of onions for the low price.
Darade said that he was offered a rate of Rs 65 in total for the 13 quintal of his produce, while he spent more than Rs 700 per acre for cultivating onions and paid Rs 780 towards transportation charges for bringing the produce.
According to Indian express report, the traders said that the onions were bad and were small in size.
“Onions are currently auctioned at Rs 600-700 per quintal in APMCs, but farmers are bringing wet onion stock. On Tuesday, one farmer (Darade) brought onions for auction at Saikheda. However, most of his produce was wet and rotten. Still, some of his good quality onions were valued at Rs 25 per quintal, but wet and perished onions were valued at Rs 5 per quintal or 5 paise per kg,” said Suresh Kamankar, an onion trader.
The incident happens amidst protests against the low price of onions. Nashik unit of NCP yesterday dumped onions on the premises of all taluk offices and demanded that they should get a minimum of Rs. 2,000 per quintal.
“Onions are being sold at APMCs at Rs 600-700 per quintal. However, farmers are in distress as they could not recover even the production cost,” said Nashik district NCP president Ravindra Pagar.
