BIJAPUR; 26 Oct: Till a fortnight ago, Revanasidda Kalagonda, an onion farmer of Masuti village in Kolhar taluk was worried about losing a major portion of onion crop to recent torrential rains.
Cultivated onion in his 11 acre land, he however had stored some of the onion harvested in the past for selling when the price increases in the market.
Kalagonda now has a different problem. Because of the scarcity of onion in the market, the fear of onion theft has increased in the rural areas.
“ Couple of days ago only, the thieves stole four onion bags from my neighbor. We have now reached a stage where we have to provide security to onions as the price has sharply increased in the market due to short supply on onion”, Kalagonda said.
The onion farmers are struggling to save their crop because a major portion of onion has been damaged in the recent torrential rains. Since only a few farmers still have some good crops, they are now forced to protect them from thieves.
According to the Horticulture Department, Bijapur is the second largest onion producer district in the State by cultivating onion on around 7851 hectare land.
However, since a major portion of onion either has completely damaged or the rains have affected its quality, the farmers are in distress.
While the farmers have lost most of their crop due rains as their hopes of earning profit have dashed, those who still have some harvested onions left, are making every effort to protect their hard-earned crop from the thieves.
“ I had kept onions in the shed, but after knowing the thieves were behind the crop, I got a vehicle arranged and transported the onion to Bengaluru market”, said Shankrayya Mathapati, another farmer of Kudgi village.
Because of the short supply of onion, the present prices of Onion in Bijapur is between Rs. 60 to Rs. Rs 80/kg. The same onion was available for around Rs. 25 to Rs. 30/kg a month ago.
