Bangladesh has turned its back, Indian onion traders are crying

Indian onion traders are worried as Bangladesh has reduced imports.

Bangladesh is the largest buyer of India's onions. But now onion imports from India have been reduced to a large extent. Another buyer of the country's onions, Saudi Arabia, has also turned its back. These two countries are now turning to Pakistan and China for onions. As a result, Indian onion traders are facing a terrible recession.

Indian media outlet Economic Times reported in a report that India itself is responsible for the position of Indian onion farmers in the global market being at risk. On the pretext of maintaining stable prices in the local market, India has always banned onion exports in a rather arbitrary manner without prior notice. As a result, onion-buying countries have now found alternative sources of import.

On the other hand, industry stakeholders have warned that rival countries are increasing onion production and becoming self-reliant by using Indian onion seeds. Experts say that at one time, India supplied about three-fourths of its total onion exports to Bangladesh. But Dhaka has imported very little onion in the last eight months, even though the price of onion in Bangladesh is three times higher than before. In addition, Saudi Arabia has bought very little onion from India in the last almost a year.

Exporters said that onion seeds are illegally going to other buyers in India, including Bangladesh. Meanwhile, importing countries are becoming self-reliant, which is further weakening India's dominance in this sector.

An onion importer named Ajit Shah told the Economic Times, "We could have gotten good prices for the quality of our onions. But when we were not in the international market due to the export ban, our buyers were looking for alternative suppliers. Now buyers no longer look at quality. They look at the price at which our rival countries are offering onions."

The Economic Times reported that India banned onion exports for the first time in September 2019 for six months. Then, the government imposed another five-month ban from September 2020. As a result, prices in countries that were dependent on Indian onions increased. In 2020, Bangladesh sent a diplomatic note to India, citing frequent changes in onion exports.

Bangladesh is currently no longer buying onions from India to protect local farmers. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, India exported 7.24 million tonnes of onions to Bangladesh, which was 42 percent of its total exports. In the first six months of the 2025-26 fiscal year, Bangladesh imported only 12,900 tonnes of onions.

Although the current political situation is blamed for this, exporters say that the repeated ban on exports has turned away buying countries.

Pasha Patel, a member of the Governing Council of the Board of Trade of the Indian Ministry of Commerce, said, “We have not only lost our traditional buyers, they have started becoming self-sufficient using Indian onion seeds.”