I grew up in a home where mother cooked without onions. So, my tryst with India’s blockbuster veggie began the day I started eating.
On recoil, my sister and I grew up rather fond of the onion. So much that we would go for the attack wherever we could. A visit to a restaurant wasn’t complete without father whispering to the waiter about the family’s queer dietary precondition. But Mother often went with just raita and roti; there was seldom a restaurant where ‘pyaaz’ wasn’t omnipresent.
This wasn’t just because onion was the chef’s stock. It was affordable. So, this weekend when I heard my wife, a strict non-vegetarian food aficionado, telling the agent to strike off the onions, I had reason to double check (Disclaimer: she runs a tiny Indi-Chinese restaurant). The bad news is that onion prices haven’t peaked yet. Before long, they may touch Rs 100/kilo. Which means thousands of restaurants in India’s food market may skip the onion like millions of us are doing at home.
Agriculture Sharad Pawar isn’t the only villain. He will be if he can’t nudge Finance Minister P Chidambaram to incentivise imports on alliaceous vegetables (onions, shallots, garlic, leeks). Obsessed with containing the current account deficit, only concerted pressure will work on the FM. Our present regime is duty-free on onion imports; but traders say they want more on their plate. Why else would they take the trouble of sewing up short-term deals in Pakistan and ChinaIJ
Our supply gap isn’t just because of uneven rain. It’s because even in this day and age, India’s onions stocks haven’t been built up. We’ll get there only if onions we grow have been irradiated**. So, besides their political incorrectness, Chinese or Pakistanis onions are a dicey proposition due to this lacunae.
Banning exports, I must mention, isn’t an option either. A ban will be both anti-farmer and political rhetoric. At its current price, the Indian onion has priced itself out of the world markets anyways. This begs the question why lower rainfall in India’s onion belt, followed by excess rains in subsequent months, are enough to rattle every dining table in IndiaIJ Why, for instance, could Maharashtra, backyard of Pawar, accounting for 50 per cent of our country’s total output, not develop an onion bankIJ Particularly so in lasalgaon, the small town of 25,000 people near Nashik, the onion capital of AsiaIJ
Purushottam Jaithani, onion expert via his family company, Vishal Exports in lasalgaon, shared insider knowledge about the sad state of play on irradiation. The town has a full-scale unit of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) on to lend life to onions, mangoes and potatoes! All a farmer needs to do is to drive in and pass up to four 40-kilo bags of pre-treated produce on the belt. An irradiation takes 5 seconds. But try finding out if the facility is used!
“I do not know of a single onion farmer who uses the BARC facility,” Jaithani tells me. “Perhaps, those who need it mandatorily for their mangoes do. But no one seems to use it for giving longer shelf life to onions.” ResultIJ The supply chain hangs on a tight balance. On Monday, 600 trucks came in to lasalgaon. Just 400 came in Tuesday. Related to this is inadequate literacy that onions are best irradiated within a fortnight of being harvested.
Our failures have made us a laughing stock. Some on twitter want loan against onions. Others say musician Bappi lahri will displace gold with onions in his lockets. Would Parliament pass a law against ‘hoarding’ more than 1 kilo of alliaceous at home! Or a kilo of onion come free with a MarutiIJ The serious question remains. What does one make of a supply chain where a kilo of onion, a liter of petrol, and a bottle of beer cost the sameIJ (The columnist is CEO and Co-Founder, India Strategy Group, Hammurabi & Solomon Consulting. Tweets @therohitbansal).
**Food is exposed to a source of ionising radiation. This radiation usually is in the form of gamma rays from a source of cobalt-60 or from a non-radio active source like electron beam generated from electricity. Radiation makes the food safer to eat by destroying bacteria, very much similar to the process of pasteurization, because biological processes that lead to decay is arrested. 42 countries, including USA, UK, Canada and France allow radiation processing of food. We’ve done this since 1994. Besides onion, potato, rice samolina (sooji or rawa) wheat flour or maida, mango, raisins, dried dates, ginger, garlic, shallots (small onions) as well as meat and meat products including chicken are covered.