Pabna onion farmers face losses as bumper crop rots out of season

A bumper onion harvest in Pabna, one of Bangladesh's top onion-producing districts, has turned into a source of deep anxiety for farmers, as stored onions have begun rotting during the monsoon.

Farmers say some minor spoilage or sprouting is normal around the Bengali months of Kartik and Agrahayan, but rot of this scale during peak monsoon is unprecedented.

Neither traditional storage methods, “Machas” or “Chatals”, nor the modern storage facilities built by the Department of Agricultural Marketing have been able to prevent the decay.

Ayen Uddin, a farmer from Chandai village in Atghoria Upazila, said he had stored around 250 maunds of hybrid onions using the traditional “Macha” method, only to find much of it rotten when he recently checked.

Siddiqur Rahman of Lakshmipur village in the same Upazila said he had carefully bought 3.5 maunds of onions from markets at the start of the season, hoping to profit by selling once prices rose.

"I never imagined it would rot like this," he said, adding that he had been in the onion storage business for the past seven to eight years and had turned good profits in previous years, but expects little this time.

Ukil Uddin, a farmer from Bankola village in Sujanagar Upazila, stored 400 maunds of local onions at the agricultural marketing department's modern storage facility, following all guidelines, but still could not prevent the rot.

Abdur Rahman, a farmer from Khetupara in Santhia, said good-quality onions were selling for Tk 1,500-1,600 per maund in the market, but buyers were offering no more than Tk 300-700 for rotten ones.

With half of his 280 maunds already spoiled, he now fears he may not even recover his production costs.

According to Pabna's agriculture department, the district produced a record 995,000 tonnes of onions this season across 54,335 hectares of land, exceeding the target.

Pabna's onion supply typically meets local demand before being distributed nationwide, prompting farmers to store surplus stock using various methods.

The district now holds around 271,000 tonnes in storage.

Excess moisture this season has caused onions to sprout and spoil rapidly, with farmers claiming 25 to 30 percent of both local and hybrid varieties stored so far have already been lost.

Agriculture officials and locals attribute the rot mainly to moisture retained in the bulbs due to hailstorms and heavy rain during harvest, the selection of hybrid varieties unsuitable for long-term storage, excessive use of fertiliser and chemicals, and overcrowded storage.

Frequent power outages have also disrupted machinery at modern storage facilities, worsening the losses.

Farmers using air-flow machines, however, have reported comparatively lower losses.

The Department of Agricultural Extension said it has distributed 5,330 such machines among farmers to curb spoilage.

The department’s Deputy Director Mohammad Jahangir Alam Pramanik said this year's onion yield had been a record high, but natural disasters and power outages had driven up spoilage, raising fears of losses for farmers.

He, however, said there was no risk of an onion shortage in the national market.