India Faces Onion Shortage Despite Record Harvest

India has produced a record harvest but many farmers in the onion bowl of Maharashtra have lost a huge share of their crop due to damage in storage.

Unseasonal weather, hoarding and price manipulation have caused dramatic price rise in the past. The new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is anxious to prevent a repetition of the same.

Supply deficiencies make the government's task of battling weak growth and inflation even tougher. It also highlights the irony of high food costs in India, which is the world's biggest fruit and vegetable producer after China.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's budget on Thursday will have to tackle these issues as he while steering away from populist measures such as food and fuel subsidies. Importing onions would be the only effective way to curb soaring prices, agriculture experts say, but similar steps in the past have failed to ease supplies.

"The only solution is imports, but that can't be done overnight," said RP Gupta, director at the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation.

Prices are unlikely to come down before December. Sowing of the new season crop has been delayed due to the scorching heat and less rainfall, blunting the affect of measures taken by the government to get supplies to market and keeping prices in check.

The consumption of onions in the country is 15 million tonnes a year.