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Agriculture & Food ProductionMaharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, India· Source · May 2026

Onion farmers in India can't see, before loading a truck, which nearby market will pay a fair price that day.

Small onion farmers

Where it stands

  1. Sourced (done)
  2. Kit (done)
  3. Wanted (next)
  4. Building
  5. Solved

How this problem came to be

  1. Found2 sourcesoutlookbusiness.com, global-agriculture.com
  2. Quoted4 claimseach checked against its page
  3. BriefWrittenand what solved looks like
  4. MarketNot sizedon the next engine run
  5. Kit5 steps21 tools · 6 routes
  6. People0 want0 live it · 0 would test

The problem, broken down

Who it hurts
Small and marginal onion growers who sell through regulated wholesale markets (mandis) and lack storage.
The moment
Deciding at dawn which mandi to drive to, knowing that a wasted trip costs transport and a day's work.
What people do today
Farmers rely on traders and word of mouth. Some wait all day without an auction and end up dumping produce or selling below cost.
Why it's unsolved
Prices are published, but late and not tied to a farmer's own location, transport cost or the queue at each market.
What solved looks like
A voice or SMS service where a farmer says their village and quantity and hears the three nearest mandis ranked by expected price minus transport cost, using that morning's arrivals and prices, plus a warning if a market is overloaded.

Evidence

Every claim is tied to the source it comes from
Outlook Business: Why farmers dump crops even as consumers pay more (May 2026) ↗
  1. 1In Maharashtra, smaller onion varieties were selling for as little as ₹1 to ₹4 per kg, below input and transport costs, and a farmer dumped over 2,500 kg after waiting all day without an auction.
  2. 2Farmers received only around 37% of the retail onion price on 14 May 2026.
Global Agriculture / Krishak Jagat: Onion mandi prices crash in Madhya Pradesh (June 2025) ↗
  1. 3On 26 May 2025, wholesale onion prices in several Madhya Pradesh mandis dropped to ₹50 to ₹150 per quintal.
  2. 4Farmers put production costs at ₹12 to ₹15 per kg, and many small farmers lack storage, leaving them to sell at distress prices.

Written from the cited sources. Anything they don't say is left as a question, not a guess.

Sources

From a public page with a citation.

  1. [1]Global Agriculture / Krishak Jagat: Onion mandi prices crash in Madhya Pradesh (June 2025)
  2. [2]Outlook Business: Why farmers dump crops even as consumers pay more (May 2026)
What the source says, in short

In Maharashtra, smaller onion varieties were selling for as little as ₹1 to ₹4 per kg, below input and transport costs, and a farmer dumped over 2,500 kg after waiting all day without an auction. Farmers received only around 37% of the retail onion price on 14 May 2026. On 26 May 2025, wholesale onion prices in several Madhya Pradesh mandis dropped to ₹50 to ₹150 per quintal. Farmers put production costs at ₹12 to ₹15 per kg, and many small farmers lack storage, leaving them to sell at distress prices.

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