PUNE: Devidas Parmane, a farmer from Vadgaon Rasai village near Pune sold 952 kg of onion in Pune Agricultural Price Market Committee on May 10 for Rs 1.60 a kg. After deducting the market charges and transportation cost, he received a net payment of Rs 1 per kg. Parmane was lucky to be able to get this price for his produce.Many other farmers, who had to pay to the adatiya (middleman), had to incur transportation and other charges that were more than the total price of the onions.This explains why farmers have been staging agitations across the state under the banners of various farmer organisations. Wholesale onion prices have crashed to Rs 3-7 kg in onion-growing states such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh , Maharashtra and Karnataka, while the minimum price has plunged to Rs 1 per kg.Parmane’s payment receipt shows that the total cost of his 952 kg of onions was about Rs 1,522. The expenditure he incurred on account of the middleman’s commission was Rs 91.35, labour charges were Rs 59, weighing charges Rs 33.30, loading charges Rs 18.5 and transportation cost Rs 1,320 , which included Rs 600 for the packaging bags.“The onions we bought from Parmane was of very small size. We had to sell it to the shepherds at Rs 1-2 per kg,” said Sudhir Jadhav, partner at Pallavi Trading Company, which bought Parmane’s onions. “But now, we have advised farmers not to get such onions to the market. Instead they can feed it to the animals or compost it to make fertiliser,” he said.Increased production coupled with decline in exports has pulled onion prices below cost of production. According to the Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board, India’s total onion production in 2015-16 is expected to be 5-7% higher than in the previous year, while onion production in Maharashtra is expected to be up 15-20%.Of the total onion production in the country, about 20% goes for exports. Maharashtra’s share in the total onion exports is 70-80%. However, exports declined from 15 lakh tonnes in 2012-13 to 6.5 lakh tonnes in 2015-16. Exporters said they lost their traditional markets due to high prices in the domestic market in 2014-15.