Performance of fresh onions in India: An economic analysis

Abstract

India is the second largest onion growing country in the world. Onion (Allium cepa L) is extremely important vegetable crop not only for internal consumption but also as highest foreign exchange earner among the fruits and vegetables. The time series data has been collected for 20 years (1999 to 2019) and classified into First decade (1999 to 2008) and Second decade (2008 to 2019) for comparing decade performance. Compound growth rate, Coppock's Instability Index, Supply response analysis and Markov Chain analysis are the tools used for analyzing the data. Growth rate in first decade were higher which was statistically significant at 1 per cent while the export value recorded comparatively higher annual growth rates at 20.99 per cent in first decade which was statistically significant at 1 percent level. In supply response analysis, among the price and non price factors, lagged yield only positively influences farmer's decision on acreage allocation in current year. The direction of trade in Indian onion export shows that UAE and Nepal are the highest stable onion market with the probability of retention 0.52 and 0.45 respectively from 1999-2019.It shows that there is a need to create our onion demand and maintain good relations with other countries to retain the market share.