Higher onion price to persist until new crop arrives

The price of onion has been surging in Pabna for the last couple of weeks as the level of stock at the farmers' end is fast-depleting owing to the lack of storage capacity for the perishable item.

As a result, consumers would have to consume the key cooking ingredient at a higher price for at least the next two or three weeks until the new crop becomes available in the market.

In Pabna, each kilogramme of onion is selling at Tk 50 to 55 in the retail market, up from Tk 30 to 35 in early February, according to traders.

The north-western district is not the lone district that is witnessing a sudden spike in onion price.

Data from the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh showed on Friday that the price of the local variety of the kitchen item rocketed 72.73 per cent to Tk 45-50 a kg at various markets in Dhaka from Tk 25-30 a month ago.

The imported variety is selling at Tk 50-55 a kg, up from Tk 40-45 a month ago.  

A month ago, the Sujanagar wholesale market, the biggest wholesale hub in Pabna, used to get a supply of 3,000 to 4,000 tonnes of onion each haat day. Now, the supply has dwindled down to 1,000 to 2,000 tonnes, according to Md Abdur Rashid, a wholesaler.

"Due to the poor supply, the price has gone up by Tk 300 to Tk 400 per maund in the last two or three weeks."

Md Selim Hossain, a wholesaler at the Pabna Boro Bazar, also blamed the lack of adequate supply for the upward trend of the vegetable in the wholesale market.

Mohammad Montu, a retailer at the Abdul Hamid Road Market in the district headquarters, bought a maund of onion at Tk 1,100 to Tk 1,200 a couple of weeks ago. He is now buying the same item at Tk 1,500 to Tk 1,550.

"The price has been soaring for the last couple of weeks. As the price has gone up in the wholesale market, we are bound to sell a kg of onion at Tk 50," he said.

Despite the higher price of the crop, many farmers have missed out on the opportunity to make higher profits.

One of them is Mohammad Kamruzzaman, an onion grower at Durgapur village in Sujanagar. He cultivated the Kondo variety of onion this year on five bighas of land.

He completed harvesting in January. And because of the lack of a storage facility, he has had to sell his entire crop by the middle of February.

He sold a maund of onion at Tk 800 to Tk 900 in the wholesale market a month ago. "The price has rocketed just after I had sold all of my produce."

"Many farmers have also done the same as I did as they don't have any storage facility."

An estimated 1.80 lakh tonnes of Kondo variety of onion were produced on 8,505 hectares of land in the district, according to Md Idris Ali, a development section officer of the Department of Agricultural Extension in Pabna

The Kondo variety meets the demand for onion before harvesting the main crop.

A total of 44,810 hectares of land have been brought under the cultivation to grow the main crop with a goal to produce 6.35 lakh tonnes of onion, said Ali.

"The harvesting will begin in the middle of March. Once the new crop hits the market, the price will fall."

Pabna is the largest onion producing district in Bangladesh, accounting for a third of the local production.