IMPORTING IS NOT THE SOLUTION OF OVERCOMING DECADE LONG ONION CRISIS IN BANGLADESH
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IMPORTING IS NOT THE SOLUTION OF OVERCOMING DECADE LONG ONION CRISIS IN BANGLADESH
Department of Agronomy
Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University
Dhaka, Bangladesh
The drastic deficit crisis of onion in the market has been a decade-long problem in Bangladesh. Two month’s ago, it was like so which recently has been mitigated to some extent by mass importing from abroad. Experts say this is not, more importantly, should not be a regular solution. The opinion suggests adopting effective and sustainable measures to solve this long-lasting irritating problem.
Onion price was on a sharp spike since November of the last year. After the fresh harvest the price declined, but the price hiked again in the month of August of this year. Such instability and a sudden increase in the onion market create consumers’ mass discontent and social discomfort. This happens as our neighboring country India refrained from exporting because of its own cause. Being a neighbor, importing onion from India becomes easier for Bangladesh. The situation has been usual and repeated happening in each year. Bangladesh is in a deficit in onion production which makes this country compelled to buy onions from abroad every year. Intellectuals put forward a number of advice to the government, policymakers, and growers to solve this problem including finding alternative countries to import along with using high-production technologies and bringing more area of land under onion cultivation to increase its inland-production. Consumers expected that there will not be left any possibility of price hiking further especially so early as last year’s discontent made many amendments to the government’s policy and management adoptions regarding the unstable onion market.
In the last year, the price hike as the consequence of the supply crunch in the onion market in India was massively criticized among all the sects of the people, although the government and some organizations claimed to say that there was plenty of onion both in the market and stocks. Some people and even some state persons claimed the situation to be an artificial phenomenon created by some bad businessmen. The dailies along with many mass and social media made coverage of this eye-tearing onion a regular item. The consumers starting from slums to elites were concerned giving more importance to collecting onion from the market on an urgent basis for their families. Poors were seen in long queues for collecting onions at a cheaper rate from TCB sale trucks. The situation was so aggravated that the government had to import onion on an emergency basis even using cargo flights at higher prices from different countries.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the country produces 1803 thousand metric tons of onion in the 2018-19 fiscal year. The total need for onion in Bangladesh is 2600 metric tons leaving a deficit of eight thousand metric tons. The most onion growing areas of Bangladesh are Pabna, Faridpur, Rajbari, Rajshahi and Kustia. During 2017-18 season, 66.41% land was under the coverage of these five districts. These districts grew 68.28% of the total production of onion during 2016-17 fiscal year. The rest of the onion came from other onion growing districts. The imported onion from abroad is disbursed through out the country as per the need of the individual markets. The problems arise when there is a disruption in the supply system in the market following the export ban by India, which always is overlapped with artificial crises created by the onion traders. To meet up the crisis period, government may carry out a buffer stock of onion which can be distributed during this crisis period. The Trading Company of Bangladesh may play the major role in this context. In India, this role is played by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. to conform the buffer stock of the agricultural commodities along with the onion. For doing this, Bangladesh has to have requisite storage facilities throughout the country.
Owing to the discovery of new high yielding onion varieties and improved production technologies, the onion production has increased from 134 thousand metric tons in 1999 to 1866 thousand metric tons in 2017. Such achievement was due to the increased productivity per unit area of land and also bringing more lands under onion cultivation. Farmers also have been more interested for having more profits of this high value crop at the expense of usin some area of lands which were under some of other crops. However, at the pick harvest period, the price, in most of the cases, falls as the supply of onion is in excess in the markets.
In the last year, scientists and economists advised us regarding the mitigation of onion crisis putting forward a number of ways including finding more or alternative countries for import. They also emphasized on expanding onion cultivation in more areas along with making all sorts of technological approaches to increase its yield productivity. Among the technological approaches, use of high yielding varieties and appropriate production inputs, supply of improved quality seeds, reducing post harvest losses both from drying and pest attack especially from onion rot and disease were the prime ones. Economists advised the government to provide loan on easy terms and conditions, so that farmers can increase the crop productivity and reduce the post harvest losses so as to increase farmers’ profit as well as shrinking the import loads.
The more thrust be given on the supply of seeds of the high yielding varieties coupled with the uninterrupted input supply. While doing these, care must be taken to give privileges to the farmers of the most growing areas having higher land productivity. In one survey, it was reported by a research team that the most productive land was observed in the districts of Rajshahi, Kustia, Faridpur and Pabna yielding onion from 10.149 – 14.412 t/ha. If more thrust is given on these areas, the yield productivity would substantially be increased. In our neighbouring country, some areas yield onion 25 to 30 tons/ha. In Bangladesh, there are some districts have very low productivity of onion. For example, Rangpur, Chittagong, Barisal and Sylhet has the productivity of 7.71, 5.04, 3.93 and 5.75 tons/ha, respectively. This indicates that the soil and environmental suitability of these areas are inferior as compared to the above mentioned districts. This information signifies that there are high scopes for increasing the onion production in our country raising the productivity more further.
But I do not like to say that we should not grow onion in the districts where the yield productivity is far less as compared to that of five districts. The above proposal could be an ambition which may not be achieved in a short time owing to some practical causes; such as soil limitations, environmental constraints, farmers inabilities, market instability, world onion production-status and inland’s social and traders’ attitudes. Despite these constraints, we can make the soil of these regions most suitable for onion production removing all the limitations, supplying farmers good seeds of the highest yielding varieties, uninterrupted supply of production inputs and good post harvest processing and storage facilities. It is reported that due to poor post harvest processing and storage, 40-60% of the total produced onion may get wasted. If we can assume that in Bangladesh this loss becomes 25%, then such an amount is not negligible to us in terms of our annual import. Onions get wasted for want of good pre- and post-harvest practices. The research initiatives to develop high and short duration onion varieties suitable to grow both in Rabi and Kharif 1 (summer) seasons. Thrust also be given to develop varieties with long shelf-life along with other acquiring desirable characters. To prevent the storage loss, some alternative techniques may also needs to be adopted. When dehydrated by chopping and drying, onions can be stored for a much longer time in the form of chips or powder, which the experts say, would be popular among the urban-aspirational sections of the consumers. In the meantime, BARI has invented a protocol to make onion powder to utilize the surplus harvest of the individual farmers which can easily be done by the farmers themselves if they are properly trained.
Selection of the most onion growing regions for onion production be emphasized on account of some other reasons. It was observed that a particular crop was not found to be suitable in all the regions owing to its differential edaphic and environmental demands as it may need a particular sets of environmental and edaphic factors. For this reason, selecting zone-specific crops for increasing the per unit land productivity of that crops (s) so as to increase the total agricultural productivity from our limited lands. Again, to repeat, this does not mean that onion should not be grown in all the districts. We must grow it in all the districts so that farmers can meet up some portions of their family needs. In that case, we must provide them all the facilities so as to increase the productivity of onion in those areas as well. For example, onion is susceptible to water logging. So, in the coastal areas we must be careful to extending lands for onion cultivation as the water recesses late in the month of December and; again tide water intrudes in the land in the month of March in most of this region causing damage to the bulbs at harvest. So, it would be quite difficult to expand onion acreage in these problem areas excepting in the high lands which is much less as compared to other regions of Bangladesh. Such or some other limitations exist in many coastal areas which must be avoided for onion production. However, in the polder areas, there might be some scopes to expand onion acreage provided the tide water is fully controlled through sluice gate system.
Another limitation of extending onion cultivation in the country is the high completion among crops in Rabi season when many of our important crops are grown along with those which we have to import from other countries to meet our consumers’ demand. Boro, pulses, oilseed crops, wheat, maize etc. are grown in Rabi season. We import pulses, oilseeds, maize, wheat and some many other agricultural products from abroad and so if we try to replace these crops even to some extent, it will cause more drainage of our valuable foreign currencies.
Because of the high completion in the Rabi season, for expanding onion growing areas in the country, there is only alternative to increase its acreage in Kharif 1 season sowing in the month of March and April in the lands where most of the Rabi crops are harvested and the lands become free. Even in this case, high lands must be selected as other lands are exposed to water stagnation due to heavy rain during either at the growth stage or at harvest. The harvesting time of onion continue up to the month of July and at this time heavy rains are frequent in Bangladesh. To boost onion production in the Kharif 1 season, necessary technologies are also needed; the major ones have already been generated by the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institutes (BARI) scientists. Both to produce seeds and increase the productivity, BARI scientists’ expertise may be sought by the BADC which has the principal responsibility of producing seeds of both major and minor crops in the country. In a recent programme, the Agriculture Minister also emphasized on expanding onion cultivation in the Kharif season and to implement this, he also instructed the respective authorities to make a master plan along with the production of onion seeds to make the country self-sufficiency in onion production. But, for expanding onion in the summer or kharif season, we must be very careful as the Kharif onion faces water stagnation. Owing to mass cloud coverage, drying onion bulbs is also difficult in this season. Moreover, the pest and disease incidence in also more as compared to those grown in Rabi season. Such unfavourable situations cause rotting onion bulbs both in the field and storage. Bangladesh needs 1100 tons of onion seeds every year. Supply of good quality of onion seeds will be helpful boosting onion production.
Many of the social and political activists opine that the onion price gets at its unusual peak due to the conspiracy and syndicacy of the onion traders. The government’s intervention toward such syndicacy may be helpful to maintain onion the price non-volatility or price fluctuation in the onion market. The agriculturists and economists realize that if onion production can be boosted, such social crisis would disappear. So, for this reason, the major responsibility goes to the policy making experts and the implementing authority (ies). The onion price hike may also be originated from mental anxiety of the consumers with a feeling that they will not be able to buy onion from the market if its stock runs out. The economists say this feeling of the consumers as the ‘Inflationary expectation’ which the sociologist may call ‘inflationary fear or panic’. Such mental anxiety mostly happens in the rich sects of consumers. Due to this inflationary expectation, the rich people rushes to the market to purchase much amount of onion even two or three months in advance for their family to escape onion deficit period. Despite foreign ban on export and traders’ syndication, these two factors attribute a lot to the sudden increase in onion price in the market.
The stock of the inland produced onion runs out in the month of July-August starting from the early harvest of December. At the pick harvest time of February-March of the Rabi crop, the needy farmers have to sell their surplus harvest in the local market and as a result, onion supply becomes excess causing a drastic fall in the price making a remarkable loss to the onion farmers. This badly discourages the onion farmers for the production any further . This could be avoided to provide easy loan to them so that they can store their own produce for at least two months. Further, due to insufficient storage facility and knowledge gap, significant portion of the produced onions gets rotten. This could be overcome taking the expertise consultation regarding the modern storage facilities and training the farmers. Although modern storage facility is under the matter of long term planning whose execution is also difficult as it incurs a lot of monetary investment at the initial level. To overcome the damage due to the inadequate storage facilities, the improved traditional low cost storage structure may be introduced on a short term basis at farmers’ level. To prepare modern cool storage facility, private sector investors may be encouraged beside the governmental approaches. The cold storage requires 60 percent humidity coupled with the temperature of 8 - 12 degrees Celsius for keeping the quality of onion for long days.
Despite a heavy completion among the Rabi crops, some temporal pockets may be found out introducing short duration varieties of different crops such as Boro rice, wheat, maize etc. so that a short duration onion varieties could be fitted into the existing cropping system. BARI has released some short growing varieties of onion which can easily be cultivated in Kharif season. In kharif season, using short duration varieties can be harvested before the onset of heavy rain in the month of July. Such approaches may also be adopted in the most growing onion areas which would help increasing scope for growing onion two times a year. The short duration onion varieties could also be fitted in the coastal areas’ cropping pattern based on the proper selection of lands. The cropping pattern is the system of sequential cropping in a year on a piece of land. Report says describing onion production in the Charlands which are suitable for onion because of light texture of the soil, provided the moisture and nutrition supply is guaranteed. It is assumed that one thousands metric tons of onion could be produced using these Charlands in winter season which will also be helpful meeting the extra demands of onion in Bangladesh.
