Eat That - Onions to Learn Addition

Cheap Onion prices, or any other agricultural produce, are no longer governed by ripping off the poor farmer alone.

Now there is a longer value chain that eats into the cost of agro produce.It adds a series of Pluses to the farmers selling price of Onions(or whatever)

Here is my (layman/naive?) take on this new math............................

1. Land prices are shooting thru the roof. Speculators are buying land at astronomical prices. Last year I was scouting for agro land in Karjat ( a scenic, water rich region sandwiched between Mumbai and the Western Ghats) . Rich fertile agro land was going at 2.5 lacs to 10 lacs per acre. Vast tracts of fertile, irrigated rice paddies were lying idle ! And good properties were just not be had.  Earlier this year I drove thru the ultra fertlie Thanjavur Delta in Tamil Nadu, the rice bowl of that State. Lush green paddies extended as far as the eye could see. But along the main roads, land was being converted into Housing plots and Engineering colleges(Why does TN have one Engg college every km , thats another mystery)

So imagine you are a farmer- You are tilling an asset worth Rs.2-10 lacs per acre and expecting a return of what ? Rs.25000 per acre ? or maybe 1 lac if you are lucky ! So why should you sell your onions cheap ? Add 2 pluses to the Farmers selling price of Onion ++

2.Input prices have shot thru the roof- Everything that  a farmer need to produce your Onion costs hugely more-Fertlizer, Input seeds, power , diesel, pestiscide and then, his daily cost of living is anyway trebled over what it was a few years back. So that is at least 4 pluses to your onion cost ++++

3.And then there is MNREGS- Farmers now have to compete with the famous NREGA in paying for Agricultural labor. Being in a sellers market, Farm Labor now costs at least double of what it did earlier
Add that to your Onion cost . +++++

4. The unpredictable weather- Crops are a complete waste when rain pours more than needed (this is far more dangerous for the farmer than marginal drought ! ) A crop wipeout is a 100% loss. So add 6 pluses to your onion cost ++++++++++

5.The Hoarder-Politician nexus- We are once again the glorious 60's and 70's when Bollywood movies would figure an oily trader hoarding foodstuff and the valorous hero bashing them up and opening the Godown for the Aam Admi.

Only now there are no heroes to the rescue- The various politicians and their minions are freely participating in the hoard. There are dangerous murmurs of how UPA Minister (s) are behind the hoarding of Onions in Lasalgaon, the Onion marketplace in Western Maharashtra.

Add 20 pluses to this.

So we end up with Onion prices being Rs.10++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

EAT THAT !!