Tony Abbott has eaten a raw brown onion, skin and all, as if it were a ripe apple during a visit to a farm in Tasmania today.

In what was almost certainly a brain explosion, the prime minister shocked the property's owner and media touring Chartlon Farm Produce with him when he picked up the vegetable and began painfully chewing on it.

It was after watching a conveyor belt of the onions that Mr Abbott's instinctive appetite kicked in, picking one up and taking a couple of regardless of the likely acidic burn.

But whilst the simple act of chopping or cooking the vegetables is enough to bring tears to most people's eyes, the prime minister barely flinches in footage of him munching on the onion.

"I may have said 'It's a shame they weren't peeled' and he just started eating it," farm owner David Addison told local newspaper The Mercury .

"It was just spontaneous and there weren't even any tears."

Chatter online was mixed between people impressed at his lack of wincing as he ate to those in disbelief that he did it.

"Tony Abbott chowed down on a raw onion, skin and all, in front of TV cameras. Shows commitment. He should be committed," Paul Montgomery posted on Twitter.

The prime minister apparently later remarked it was "better than any other onions I've tasted for a long time", The Mercury reports.

He was in Tasmania today to confirm a $200 million boost to the state's freight equalisation scheme, the ABC reports.