Onion is one of the main ingredient of Indian diet and is known to have changed Govts when the price goes up as it is consumed daily by majority households.Even after having such robust market, farmers still are not getting the right price for their produce and end up getting stuck in the period of high/low productions.
Below is the data which i have taken from Govt website to show how this pattern is leading to mismatch b/w Demand & Supply.
Notice the spike in prices of 2010 when the production was lesser (only by 10%), main reason was not enough remuneration of the produce in previous year 2009.
After price went up in 2010, there was an increase in area under production which further resulted in record production of 15,118 thousand tons and brought the prices down to 12.
Is contract farming is a better solution to plan supply against demand?
Or our(whole world) production levels have gone high and there isn't enough demand? given the fact that Indian Productivity levels are still much lesser than developed countries or China?
Production Data India
| AR | AREA(000’ ha) | PRODUCTION (000’tons) |
| 1996-97 | 404 | 4180 |
| 2000-01 | 450 | 4721 |
| 2006-07 | 768 | 10847 |
| 2007-08 | 821 | 13900 |
| 2008-09 | 834 | 13565 |
| 2009-10 | 756.2 | 12158.8 |
| 2010-11 | 1064 | 15118 |
Production Data Bhopal
| District_Name | Crop_Year | Season | Crop | Area | Production |
| BHOPAL | 1999 | Whole Year | Onion | 581 | 6850 |
| BHOPAL | 2000 | Whole Year | Onion | 564 | 6677 |
| BHOPAL | 2001 | Whole Year | Onion | 638 | 6407 |
| BHOPAL | 2002 | Whole Year | Onion | 615 | 5932 |
| BHOPAL | 2003 | Whole Year | Onion | 748 | 8103 |
| BHOPAL | 2004 | Whole Year | Onion | 832 | 11195 |
| BHOPAL | 2005 | Whole Year | Onion | 852 | 10042 |
| BHOPAL | 2006 | Whole Year | Onion | 1036 | 13434 |
| BHOPAL | 2007 | Whole Year | Onion | 941 | 9048 |
| BHOPAL | 2008 | Whole Year | Onion | 829 | 8898 |
| BHOPAL | 2009 | Whole Year | Onion | 805 | 9499 |
| BHOPAL | 2010 | Whole Year | Onion | 644 | 3397 |
| BHOPAL | 2011 | Whole Year | Onion | 691 | 15643 |
| BHOPAL | 2012 | Whole Year | Onion | 733 | 22922 |
| BHOPAL | 2013 | Whole Year | Onion | 696 | 10216 |
Price Data Bhopal
| Date | Centre_Name | Commodity_Name | Price |
| 31-12-99 | BHOPAL | Onion | 4 |
| 29-12-00 | BHOPAL | Onion | 6 |
| 31-12-01 | BHOPAL | Onion | 5 |
| 31-12-02 | BHOPAL | Onion | 4 |
| 31-12-03 | BHOPAL | Onion | 12 |
| 31-12-04 | BHOPAL | Onion | 6 |
| 30-12-05 | BHOPAL | Onion | 10 |
| 29-12-06 | BHOPAL | Onion | 4 |
| 31-12-07 | BHOPAL | Onion | 10 |
| 31-12-08 | BHOPAL | Onion | 6 |
| 31-12-09 | BHOPAL | Onion | 10 |
| 31-12-10 | BHOPAL | Onion | 30 |
| 31-12-11 | BHOPAL | Onion | 12 |
| 31-12-12 | BHOPAL | Onion | 12 |
| 31-12-13 | BHOPAL | Onion | 18 |
https://data.gov.in/catalog/district-wise-season-wise-crop-production-statistics
