The price of onion is a political hot potato in Maharashtra, the country’s key onion producing belt. With its price rising and the state going to polls on Wednesday, November 20t, consumers and farmers will evaluate political posturing with more than the stinging sharpness of the multi-layered wonder in each morsel and every mandi.
According to Sukhpal Singh, professor and former chairperson of the Centre for Management in Agriculture (CMA), Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, Maharashtra remains a fairly diverse state in agriculture with pockets of both prosperity and deprivation. Poll outcomes and poll promises therefore matter to all farmers albeit expectations on policy prescriptions vary depending on the farmer class in question. While the state is known for its cooperatives – be it sugarcane or milk, it is also a state that has seen large land-owning farmers benefiting and agricultural workers feeling exploited.
Professor Singh points to a rising trend in some pockets to grow and nurture high-value crops – sweet corn/ baby corn, soya bean, pomegranate, organic cotton and not to miss grapes. Maharashtra, he reminds, today contributes to 90 per cent of total grape exports from India and about 70 per cent of total production of grapes, a high water consuming crop in a state that has only 18 per cent of its total crop area irrigated. With many dry land areas like Vidarbha or Marathwada not seeing enough growth. One area of comfort for the state and its farmers is the rise in the number of farmer producer organisations (FPOs). “Today, one-fourth of India’s FPOs are in Maharashtra. That is about 6000 out of a total of around 25,000 FPOs in the country,” says Professor Sukhpal Singh. This is favourable for farmers as it brings small farmers together and helps them get farm inputs at better prices and also sell their produce at better prices.
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At the moment, the scenario nationally is favourable for agriculture with growth rate exceeding 4 per cent for the first time in several years but what matters more is regions where it is happening and the form and fashion of production and how farmers perceive it.
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