Peeved at the steep slump in the price of onion, farmers dumped the produce on the RTC Bus Stand Road and staged a ‘rasta roko’ in front of the Kurnool market yard on Saturday, urging the government to provide them succour through market intervention.
Farmers, who brought nearly 300 lorry loads of onion to the market yard three days ago, stayed put on the premises and turned impatient as there were no takers.
Several farmers had been falling asleep on the onion bags in the market yard for the last three days.
The price for smaller variety plummeted to as low as Rs. 100 per quintal and the slightly bigger variety to Rs. 300 per quintal.
Farmers of Pathikonda, Adoni, Aspari, C. Belagal, Yemmiganur, and Kodumur mandals in the district and those of neighbouring Mahabubnagar district lamented that they had invested nearly Rs. 1.50 lakh per acre to grow onion, but were hardly getting an income of Rs. 20,000 per acre.
They demanded that the government resort to market intervention to bail them out of the crisis.
Kurnool Market Committee chairperson S. Samanthakamani assured the farmers that she would apprise the government on their plight.
