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| - Fact-Check: Nashik doesn't produce half of all onions in the world — the real number is much smaller
A post shared by an Instagram user asserts that Nashik alone accounts for more than 50 per cent of global onion production. However, this is not true.
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India Today Fact Check
India individually contributes about 28.5% to the world's global onion production. And Maharashtra contributes a much smaller percentage of that. Nashik therefore cannot produce half of the world’s onions.
In Nashik, Maharashtra, the area under cultivation for onions has been increasing over the years. Both, the bumper production of onions and the farmers cultivating them in Maharashtra, keep making national headlines. However, a social media post going viral makes a rather far-fetched claim about Nashik's onion production capacity.
The present global production of Allium Cepa, commonly known as onion, across the world, is about 46.7 million tons. A post shared by an Instagram user asserts that Nashik alone accounts for more than 50 per cent of global onion production.
AFWA’s investigation found that the claim is dubious because India only accounts for 28.5 per cent of the global onion production.
AFWA PROBE
As per a 2019 Food and Agriculture Organisation report, China, the world’s largest onion producer, contributed nearly 31 per cent to global onion production, while India accounted for 28.5 per cent. In India, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh are the major onion-producing states. Out of these states, Maharashtra alone accounts for 30 per cent of India's onion production.
Simply put, at least as per these numbers, Maharashtra shares 8.55 per cent of global onion production. Now it's not hard to imagine how Nashik would fare in terms of its contribution to the world.
On further probe, we came across a March 2022 report by The Times of India, which gave accurate numbers for onion production in Nashik. The report suggests that Nashik produced around 4,600 metric tonnes of onions in 2018. While the annual production of onion in India for 2018 was 21,838 metric tonnes. Calculating both the numbers against each other, we analysed that Nashik contributes somewhat about 21 per cent to India's onion production.
All of this proves that while Nashik’s onion production is substantial, to suggest that the Maharashtrian district accounts for half of the world’s is quite an exaggeration.
(Written by Vikas Bhadauria)
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