The Onion Producers, Processors and Entrepreneurs Affiliation of Nigeria has defined causes for the upsurge within the value of onions and shortage of the produce within the nation.
The Nationwide President of the Affiliation, Aliyu Isah, gave the explanations in an interview with the Information Company of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos.
NAN reviews that Nigeria witnessed a hovering rise within the value of onions from the fourth quarter of 2024 with a bag promoting between N250,000 and N270,000 as towards N70,000 and N90,000 per bag in earlier months.
Whereas a medium-sized bulb of the produce sells at N500 as towards N50 per bulb.
Mr Isah advised NAN that the explanations for the hike in onion value have been multifaceted, resulting in low manufacturing of the produce.
“What induced the shortage and excessive value of onions from the final quarter of 2024 until now’s because of the flooding.
“The flooding of 2024 that ravaged all our onion farms, from the manufacturing mattress of Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, as much as Adamawa states resulted within the shortage of the produce.
“We additionally had the issue affecting onion manufacturing with the discharge of water from dams from the northern states.
In Sokoto, the water was launched from Goronyo Dam, when it received to a sure stage it affected the onion beds from Sokoto, Kebbi and as much as Zamfara states.
“Additionally, we had the breakage of dams in Borno State which destroyed our onion farmlands,” Aliyu stated.
He additionally blamed local weather change results leading to prolonged rainfall and illness outbreak on onion farms as one more reason for the worth surge.
“The second problem affecting shortage and the excessive value of onions is that we skilled an prolonged and excessive stage of rainfall up north in 2024.
“So, the excessive quantity of rainfall resulted in excessive humidity which resulted in illness outbreak popularly referred to as Downy Mildew, which destroyed most of our onion farms at varied levels of cultivation.
“Some onions farms have been affected at seedling stage, some at nursery stage, some once we have been even about to reap the onion,” the affiliation president stated.
He added that the unavailability of the produce as a result of lack of improved onion seedlings contributed to the event.
“The third is the problem of unavailability of the produce as a result of lack of improved onion seedlings.
“The components of flooding and local weather change has affected and disrupted our native seed manufacturing system.
“We do haven’t adequate and high quality onion seedlings, so we now depend on hybrid seed that we import from international nations.
“The difficulty of flooding actually affected onion seed manufacturing so native farmers couldn’t get sufficient seed to purchase. This case additionally resulted within the unavailability of onions. From the fourth quarter of 2024, and our farmers with their cash, they might not see seed to purchase.
“This additionally culminated to a significant issue the place some unpatriotic Nigeria imported adulterated onion seed into the nation and now our farmers are counting their losses as a result of they planted a seed that can’t produce a bulb,” he stated.
Mr Aliyu lamented that lack of storage amenities and know-how of the produce at harvests contributed to the surge in its value.
“One other contributory issue to shortage and value surge of onions is post-harvest losses.
“That even once we harvest sufficient through the season as a result of we lack improved know-how of onion storage, we’re being confronted with greater than 50 per cent post-harvest losses.
“That is to say that greater than half of what we produce, we lose it after harvest. So, all these are a part of the issue that’s making the onions to be costly,” Mr Aliyu stated.
Mr Aliyu stated the affiliation was working with the Federal Authorities on methods to spice up manufacturing and deal with the surge within the value of onions.
NAN
