Onion fears(Indian Express)

Mains Paper 3: Economy 
Prelims level: Kharif crops 
Mains level: Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country, different types of irrigation and irrigation systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints

Context:

• Onions retailing at an all-India average of Rs 70 per kg — they ruled at Rs 50 levels last year too around this time and had crossed Rs 100 by mid-December — has one key takeaway for policymakers.
• That has to do with the unreliability of kharif crop production even in supposedly normal monsoon years.
• The southwest monsoon season (June-September) recorded significant surplus rainfall both in 2020 and 2019. Yet, they didn’t yield the desired harvests.
• Last year, the rains weren’t good till the last week of July, but it poured thereafter and right through October.
• It led to the standing crop — including onions, pulses and soyabean — suffering heavy damage.
• Something similar has happened this time. Excess August rains took a tollof soyabean and urad (black gram) in Madhya Pradesh.
• In September, it was arhar (pigeon pea) and onion in Karnataka.
• The current month has been a washout for Maharashtra’s harvest-ready kharif onions and even the late-kharif bulbs that couldn’t be transplanted due to the nurseries getting flooded.

 Agriculture output:

• The extended monsoon rains, although not beneficial for kharif, should nevertheless help recharge groundwater aquifers and thereby, deliver a bounty during the rabi season.
• Farmers did harvest bumper winter-spring crops of wheat, chana (chickpea), mustard and even onion, tomato, gourds, beans and melons this April-June; one can hope for a repeat in the upcoming season as well.
• Rabi production is largely dependent on access to irrigation, which has improved over the years through provision of tubewell connections, building of farm ponds/water harvesting structures and adoption of drip/sprinkler technology.
• Absence of flooding, mild temperatures with clear skies, and low pest and disease incidence during this period allows farmers to obtain yields higher than from the regular post-monsoon kharif season — maize in Bihar is a clear example.
• It is rabi, not kharif, that’s going to increasingly impart stability to India’s agricultural output.

 Price stabilisation strategy:

• Linked to all this is also an effective price stabilisation strategy.
• The lack of it is apparent from the same onions, which were retailing at Rs 100/kg in December, being dumped barely four months later by Maharashtra farmers at Rs 7/kg.
• The Narendra Modi government learnt the right lessons from the 2015 Bihar Assembly elections debacle by focusing on procurement of pulses and building a buffer stock.
• Today, it isn’t arhar, but POT (potato, onion, tomato) that is giving the ruling alliance the jitters.
• Production fluctuations are inevitable with climate change and irregular rainfall patterns.
• The way to manage them is not by banning exports and imposing stock holding limits in onions or forcing cold store owners to release potatoes deposited with them.
• The government should create a buffer stock of not just foodgrains, but even onion, potato, sugar, edible oil, milk powder and white butter, to enable non-distortive marketing intervention.

 Conclusion:

• Unpredictable rainfall is affecting kharif crop, retail prices. Government must create buffer stock.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the National Super Computing Mission (NSM), consider the following statements:
1. A total of 50 Centrally Funded Institutions have been inducted into National Super Computing Mission (NSM).
2. The objective of the NSM is to empower technology institutions with high-performance computing capabilities that can be used for solving socially relevant, computationally intensive problems.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Answer: B

Mains Questions:

Q.1) What are the causes for rising in Onion prices? Do you think theprice stabilisation strategy became useful to resolve this?