Onion growers want cold storages in Upper Dir

DIR: The onion growers in Upper Dir district have asked the government to set up cold storages so that they could store the produce for longer periods.
Talking to The News, a group of farmers said that a large quantity of onions perished as there were no arrangements to store them.
They said that they would earn extra money if they could store the onions to prevent the yield from going rotten.
The onion growers said that Upper Dir produced millions of tonnes of onions, which were supplied to different cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
Mohammad Rasul, an onion grower, said that he dispatched 5,000 to 8,000 tonnes of onion daily to various markets in Peshawar, Mardan, Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Sialkot.
He added that farmers from Darora, Usheri Darra, Sahibabad, Akhagram, Wari areas also sent thousands of tonnes of onion to cities in KP and Punjab.
Mohammad Rasul said that the onions produced in Upper Dir were bigger in size than the ones cultivated in Swat and Lower Dir.
“The farmers are happy with rich produce of onions this year as last year they had suffered losses,” he added.
Another farmer said that some growers sold their onion crop to the merchants from KP and Punjab before it was ripe. He said that many locals worked in the onion fields to eke out a living.
Mohammad Rasul said that around 40 to 55 truckloads of onions were daily sent to the vegetable markets in the district.
However, the locals complained that despite the bounty produce, they could buy onions at cheater rates. They said that onions were sold for Rs50 to 70 per kilogram in Upper Dir.