Thursday, April 25, 2024
Bangladesh’s focus on boosting local onion production has opened up a path to self-sufficiency, just a year after India’s export ban rattled the market and sent the prices skyrocketing here.
The country produced 33.62 lakh tonnes of onion in 2020-21 fiscal year against the domestic demand of around 24 lakh tonnes, Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Director (Crop Wing) Khandakar Abdul Owahed told The Business Post.
DAE has provided training to farmers and encouraged them to sow high-yield seeds and brought more land under onion cultivation as part of the government’s move to achieve self-sufficiency.
“Thanks to these initiatives and suitable weather condition, Bangladesh recorded its highest-ever production this year,” Owahed said, crediting standard management, training, quality seeds and more acreages for high yield.
Bangladesh has traditionally been dependent on importing onion from India because of its proximity and similarity in variety.
Prices of the root vegetable, a staple of subcontinental cuisine, went through the roof in the country 2019 after an impromptu export ban by India. The high prices forced people to pay as much as Tk 260 a kilogram at times. This put huge pressure on the government to devise ways to meet the domestic demand with local production.
Onion demand-supply matched
DAE data showed that farmers produced 23,30,500 tonnes of onion in FY2018-19. During this period, 10,07,218 tonnes were imported, the highest so far.
In that year, people consumed 33.38 lakh tonnes of onion, the highest consumption by Bangladeshis in a single year.
The second-highest onion-consuming year was FY2017-18 when the nation consumed 31,93,103 tonnes, of which, 23,30,000 tonnes were locally produced and 8,63,103 tonnes were imported.
But in FY2020-21, farmers produced an all-time high 33,62,000 tonnes.
Despite the huge production, some 4,10,305 tonnes of onion have been imported till March 31. After a two-month pause, the government resumed issuing “import permit” - a prerequisite for onion import - in June.
“Our annual demand is around 24 lakh tonnes and the production is around 33 lakh tonnes. We need to import onion since 25-30 per cent onion could always go to waste,” said AHM Shafiquzzaman, additional secretary, Import & Internal Trade Wing, Ministry of Commerce.
This year, maximum 7,00,000 tonnes can be imported, of which the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh will import 60,000 tonnes, he added.
“With our current yield, we are yet to become self-sufficient to meet the demands. I am confident that we will be self-sufficient with domestic production,” Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque told The Business Post.
Researchers are working relentlessly to develop a variety to be cultivated in summer. “If it succeeds, we will be self-sufficient,” he said.
Storage facility
Former BIDS director Dr Asaduzzaman said that if farmers supply onion to the market when it is needed, then local production can meet domestic demand.
“Supply glut pushes down the prices. Farmers can store onion for a long time in dry storages. Wastage depends on how wet or dry the storage house is,” he said.
Asaduzzaman said that import is needed until Eid-ul Adha when the demand shoots up.
A Faridpur farmer Billal Mia, who stored 650 maunds (one maund= 37.32kg) of onion, said wastage depends on how one stores it. “I have sold 200 maunds from my storage. It seems that 5 per cent becomes wastage. It can be stored throughout the year if the storage facility is sound,” he said.
Catalysts for higher production
As the prices of onion were skyrocketing in 2019, more farmers took up onion cultivation to make more profit. The rise in per hectare yield is the major reason behind the production boost.
In FY2020-21, the root vegetable was cultivated on 2,53,000 hectares, the highest-ever in Bangladesh, which is 15,000 hectares more than the previous year. Per hectare yield reached 13.28 tonnes while the previous highest was 11.21 tonnes in FY2018-19.
“BARI Piaz-1, BARI Piaz-2, BARI Piaz-3 are our invented hybrid varieties. An average production of these varieties is around 15-16 tonnes per hectare. In some cases, we got 24 tonnes per hectare,” said Md Shahiduzzaman, chief scientific officer of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI).
“We trained farmers in 192 upazilas and asked them to use these varieties. Many used them and some privately imported varieties. The main focus was to raise per hectare production,” he added.
Shahiduzzaman said the weather was favourable. There was no rain or natural hazard during harvest period. The government distributed more than Tk 12 crore among 25,000 farmers for seeds and fertiliser, said DAE officials.
Why import and price hike despite huge production?
According to the importers, wholesalers and farmers, harvesting has been completed in mid-May. Lakhs of tonnes of onion is in storages owned by farmers and traders. They release onion into the market at a slow pace in the hopes of getting higher prices.
For this reason, wholesalers and selling agents are not getting enough supply to meet the daily demand. This has forced them to look for alternative supply source at comparatively lower prices.
Importers at this stage cajoled the government into issuing import permits saying that it will help keep the supply adequate and the prices stable.
"There is no alternative to import to keep the prices stable and affordable,” said Md Abu Bakar Siddikue, manager of Hafiz Corporation, a leading onion importer.
Retailers and general consumers prefer onions at cheaper prices.
“People want cheap onion. Imported onion is always cheaper than the local variety. Selling the local variety won’t bring high profits. So, we prefer imported onion,” Karwanbazar retailer Md Milon Hossain said.
At the time of the interview, he said that they were selling imported onion at Tk 40 a kg after buying it at Tk 32 per kg from the wholesalers. But the prices fluctuate all the time depending on the supply and demand.
“A kg of local variety will cost us Tk 42 a kg and we need to sell it at Tk 50 to make profit,” he said.
Both wholesalers and importers claim that there is an urgent need for import to keep the prices stable.
“Big farmers and traders will store onion that will cause a price hike which we have seen in 2019,” said Abdus Salaam, a middleman, who buys onion from importers in the bordering areas and sells to wholesaler in Dhaka’s Shyambazar, the largest onion market in the capital.
When onion prices shot up to Tk 250 in 2019, farmers assumed that the price will go up further and did not bring their produce to market.
“Once imported onion hit the market, farmers were forced to sell their produce at as low as Tk 10 a kg. So, import is a must to keep the prices stable,” said Jamil Munshi, proprietor of Mohammadia Traders, a wholesaler at Shyambazar.
Import a technique to become self-sufficient!
The DAE considers import as a tool to achieve self-sufficiency.
DAE Director Owahed said, “We issue the import permit. In October-November, some extra onion may be needed to meet the rising demand. But India will stop export very soon. So, before India bans export, we need to store some onion.
“During the export ban, our farmers will sell from their stock and will presumably get fair prices which will encourage them to produce more onion next year. Sustainable self-sufficiency can be achieved this way.”
How to sustain the growth?
Increased use of hybrid seeds and ensuring farmers’ profit are the key to sustained growth. It is necessary to formulate an ethical market mechanism, experts say.
Md Shahiduzzaman, chief scientific officer of BARI, said, "The use of high-yield seeds is instrumental in sustaining the growth. The government should focus on it, or else, production may fall in the coming years.”
It appears to be a huge production but at the end of the day farmers struggle to survive as the production cost is very high, noted Billal Mia, the farmer from Faridpur.
“Brokers want to buy onion for Tk 38 a kg from the storage. We want to sell it at Tk 50 a kg to make some profit,” he said.
Producing a kg of onion costs over Tk 25. If farmers can’t make profit, they will lose interest in cultivation, he said.
Sabuj Kazi, another farmer from Faridpur, who harvested 110 maunds of onion this season, concurred.
"Farmers are holding on to onions. They are not interested to sell at the current prices,” he said. “We are dependent on our produce to run our families. We can’t survive if we don’t make profit. The government must ban onion import because there’s no scarcity in the country.”
