E-Paper
Maharashtra onion farmers to join ‘Chalo Delhi’ protest
Onion farmers from Maharashtra are joining the ongoing farmers' strike in Delhi to demand the resumption of onion exports, which have been stopped for two months. The farmers in Punjab and Haryana are demanding a law guaranteeing a minimum support price for all crops. So far, negotiations have not reached a solution.
Onion farmers from Maharashtra will be going to Delhi to join the ongoing farmers’ strike in the national capital to demand resumption of onion exports that have stopped since the past two months.
Meanwhile, the ongoing farmers’ ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest at the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu border entered its fourth day on Friday.
Till now, three rounds of negotiations have been held between the farmer leaders and ministers including Punjab chief minister Bhagwat Mann and union ministers Piyush Goyal, Arjun Munda and Nityanand Rai but no solution has been reached yet.
Farmers in Punjab and Haryana led by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha have demanded that a law be passed guaranteeing a minimum support price (MSP) for all crops. This indirectly includes the demands of farmers in Maharashtra. Hence, the Onion Producers’ Association in Maharashtra has decided to participate in the ‘Delhi Chalo’ protest.
Bharat Dighole, founder-president of the Maharashtra State Onion Producers Farmers Association, said, “We fully support the agitation of the farmers in Punjab, Haryana and soon, the farmers of Maharashtra will also go to Delhi to participate in the agitation. In the next two to three days, our farmers from various districts in Maharashtra will join this protest at the Punjab border. We have already contacted some of the farmer leaders in this protest about joining the protest and they have called us.”
“Due to the anti-farmer policies of the central government, the farmers in the state are also in trouble. In December 2023, the Modi government at the Centre took a decision to ban exports which was unfair to onion producers in the state. Due to this wrong decision, our onion producing farmers became aggressive. Farmers are currently in trouble due to high prices of onion, soyabean, cotton, grapes and other agricultural commodities,” Dighole said.
Meanwhile, onion farmers have been incurring losses for a while now. “There is a situation where the price of onion does not even cover the cost of production. Therefore, we are demanding that the central government also bring onion under the guaranteed price so that the farmers do not get a price lower than the minimum cost of production,” said Mahadev Jogdand, an onion farmer from Nashik.
Whereas there was a mixed response to the ‘Bharat Bandh’ called by several farmers’ unions including the Samyukta Kisan Morcha on February 16.
The major demand of the farmers is MSP guarantee for 23 crops, withdrawal of cases registered against the farmers during the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation, and waiver of their debts.
