Nashik:
Food prices are shooting up across the country. Although, one vegetable has bucked the trend: The humble onion. The fall in price has given the consumers relief but if one looks at how the cost of onion changes from the farm to the market, the cheer of the fall becomes somewhat subdued.
Sudden, unseasonal rains this week have gutted the crops of the onion belt of Nashik and Pune that feeds about 30% of the country's demand. The farmers are trying to sell in panic, whatever they can salvage.
Last week when the farmers came to Lasalgaon, the biggest wholesale onion market in the country, the traders gave them Rs 22 for a kilo of onion.
Today, traders are not giving them even half that price and offer only Rs 10 per kilo of onion.
''I have to make do with whatever I have got,'' said Sandeep Kanse, an onion farmer.
But despite all this, the traders' business has gone up. Last week, in a high price scenario they sold onions to retailers at Rs 26 a kilo, four rupees higher than what they paid the farmer.
This week when prices are falling, the trader's margin is even higher.
The traders have a ready justification for why the farmers got less money.
An onion trader Shivaji Talekar said, ''The prices are low because the quality of onion is bad.''
NDTV visited the retail markets of Nashik where the prices have dropped down to Rs 20 a kilo.
Even five hours away in Mumbai, the impact is showing.
''Two months ago, onions were going for Rs 35 to Rs 40 per kilo. Now it has fallen to Rs 20 to Rs 22,'' said a woman shopping for groceries.
While last week from farm to market onions gathered 27% cost, this week it has acquired 54% cost in transit.
The dip in onion prices may not last but for now it's some relief in the unending price spiral. The irony though, the poor man's vegetable has only made its farmers poorer.