The long, costly road that onions travel in India

At one of India's biggest wholesale markets, 65-year-old Ganpat Sakharam Jadhav sold his 2-tonne onion harvest on a recent day at 13 rupees per kilogram, and he wasn't happy.

A day earlier, as he uprooted the crop from his field in the heart of western India's onion belt, the price was twice as high.

"I know prices will go up again once arrivals go down in the next few weeks. But by that time, these onions will rot. I will not get even a rupee," said Jadhav, separating leaves from the purple mound of bulbs in his trailer attached to a tractor.

Image: A labourer collects onions at a vegetable wholesale market in the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri.

Text: Reuters

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