Instability in Onion Production and Marketing in Maharashtra

The study looks into the instability in Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) markets, export, area, production and yield of onion in Maharashtra. To accomplish this, the present study commenced on secondary data on arrival and prices of onion in A. P. M. C. , Pune, Solapur, Pimpalgaon, Mumbai, Lasalgaon, Yeola, Malegaon, Manmad, Kolhapur and Nagpur for the period 2000 to 2015. The area, production, yield and month-wise export of onion in Maharashtra composed from National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF) website. The multiplicative scheme for seasonal instability and Cuddy-Della Valle index for instability in area, production, yield and export executed to analyze data. All investigated markets revealed positive trend in prices and arrival. The price of onion registered high instability within a year as well as between the years. Price of onion ascertained highest during lean and lowest during peak arrival period. Instability in onion export noticed higher during August-January. After globalization high growth rate with high instability observed in area, production and yield. The study will be of immense use to the farmers in providing direction as to when and where it will be more lucrative for them to dispose off their onion, as well as policy maker in price stability programme.