With the prices of fresh white onions dropping to around 750 per quintal in Mahuva agricultural produce market committee (APMC) in Bhavnagar due to a surge in arrivals, the APMC chairman on Sunday appealed farmers to stagger sell of their produce.

According to him, the onion dehydration units have their raw material pipelines empty and that storing the onions for short term may result in higher realisations.

“Very high arrivals in a short period are depressing prices. Dehydrated onion is selling at more than Rs 100 per kilogram. At this rate of the finished product, fresh white onion price should be in the range of Rs 900 to Rs 950 (per quintal). Given above factors, the current prices of white onions in the range of Rs 650 to Rs 800 is low and if farmers remain calm and transport their harvest to market in a staggered manner, prices may go up,” Ghanshyam Patel, chairman of Mahuva APMC, said in a release on Sunday.

There are 115 active onion dehydration plants in Mahuva taluka of Bhavnagar and a few in Una taluka of Gir Somnath and Gondal taluka of Rajkot district. Patel said that dehydration units are likely to function for around 100 days.

“During this time, the dehydration units of Mahuva alone would require around one crore bags of white onion. Units in Una and Gondal will have additional requirement of raw material. It is estimated that the total size of white onion crop in entire Saurashtra is estimated to be lower than the total requirement of these dehydration units. Therefore, I appeal to farmers to remain patient,” Patel added.

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White onion arrivals at Mahuva have been in the range of around one lakh bags and the APMC has been forced to regulate the arrivals for want of space. The chairman said that the APMC would allow farmers to unload their onion every alternate day from the coming week.