Indonesia seeks 900,000 tonne onion from India amid export ban

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₹20 a kg in the local market after paying ₹45 for crops, packing, labour, stuffing, transport freight, clearance charges, and sea freight. Around ₹25 per kg losses are faced by the exporters for each container," he said. Exporters also suffered heavy losses at the Bangladesh border.

Production challenges, including erratic rains and extended dry spells, have impacted onion output in the kharif and late kharif (monsoon sowing) seasons. This led to a sharp decline in cultivation area and production, intensifying the political debate ahead of the national election. On Wednesday, the average retail price of onion was at ₹41.12 a kg, 49.6% higher than the previous year, according to official data.

Onion cultivation area declined nearly 96% year-on-year to 8.6 million hectares (mh) in top grower Maharashtra in the 2023-24 kharif season. Production of the vegetable fell 94% year-on-year to 750,000 tonne in the state. In Karnataka, the second largest grower, acreage shrank by about 75% to around 11 mh and production by 43.3% from the previous kharif season to 770,000 tonnes, according to agriculture ministry sources.

As per the government’s preliminary assessment, India may have produced 3 million tonnes (mt) and 1.5 mt of onion in the 2023-24 kharif and late kharif seasons, respectively. This is significantly lower than the 4.1 mt and 2.4 mt produced in the respective seasons last year. In the previous rabi season, onion production stood at 24.6 mt.

Average monthly domestic consumption was 1.4-1.7 mt, but that may be lower now depending on the price. In the 2022-23 crop year, India had produced 30 mt of onions. “If we look at the data of the last few years, onion farmers have been suffering losses.