Onion production target reduced by 8.5 percent

Due to unfavourable weather conditions Pakistan missed the 2.104 million tons onion production target during 2006-07 by 0.343 million tons, with net output of 1.761 million tons, showing a shortfall of 16.30 percent, Business Recorder learnt on Tuesday.
As a result of this failure, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock (Minfal) has cautiously set the onion production target for 2007-08 at 1.925 million tons, with a decrease of 0.179 million tons, or 8.5 percent, sources in Sindh Agriculture Department said.
The Ministry has also decreased the cultivable area under onion from 0.126 million hectares of 2006-07 to 0.124 million hectares, they added. They said that the main reason for missing the last year's target was the Sindh factor, where onion fields were hard hit by torrential.
According to the final estimate of Crop Reporting Services Centre (CRSC) in 2006-07 onion crop of Sindh province was assessed at 45,628 hectares in area and 0.593 million tons in production.
As compared to 66,085 hectares in area and 0.833 million tons in production of 2005-06 final estimate, showing thereby a decrease of 30.96 percent in area and 28.84 percent in production. The CRSC report said that due to favourable weather conditions in Sindh, onion is cultivated in both Kharif and Rabi seasons. But during 2006-07 heavy rains damaged onion nurseries, and growers were unable to transplant the onion crop, it said.
Besides, due to rising trend in prices in the market the growers took the initiative and sowed the crop belatedly, which resulted in decrease in prices of the daily use vegetable, but they remained unable to achieve the desired area, the report said.
In terms of production, it said, growers in view of high market rates had applied the recommended dose of chemical fertiliser and received more yield per hectare, but due to less area sown the production target could not be achieved.
During 2007-08, with 1.925 million tons onion production target the Minfal eyes 0.135 million hectares area for cultivation as compared to 0.126 million hectares in 2006-07, which marks a decrease of around 2,000 hectares in the cultivable area, sources said.
On provincial level, Sindh stands on top with the task to produce 0.781 million tons onion on 56,000 hectares sowing area, followed by Balochistan with 0.6 million tons on 35000 hectares, Punjab 0.334 million tons on 34,000 hectares, and NWFP 0.209 million tons onions, to be sown on 11000 hectares land.