Onions are among the consumer goods for which Bangladeshi consumers depend heavily on India. Since India stopped exporting onions, prices in Bangladesh's markets have gone sky-high.

After the Narendra Modi government came to power in India, cattle imports from that country into Bangladesh almost stopped, which had a big impact in Bangladesh.

The price of beef jumped to Tk 550–600 a kg.

A severe shortage developed in sourcing animals for the Eid sacrifice. In the first two years the situation was such that many people found it hard to find a cow for the sacrifice.

Because of this crisis, many cattle farms sprang up in Bangladesh within a few years. For the past two years, Bangladesh's market for sacrificial animals has not depended on India.

The unprecedented rise in onion prices has raised the question of whether Bangladesh can break free of the dependence on India that has built up.

Sayema Haque Bidisha, professor of economics at Dhaka University, said: "We should never depend on a single market."

She said Bangladesh must look for alternative markets instead of relying on India alone for onion imports, and that there is no alternative to raising onion production inside Bangladesh as well.

According to Professor Bidisha, there are one or two reasons why Bangladesh came to depend on India for onions.

First, onions have historically been imported from India into Bangladesh. Second, given the quality and price of Indian onions, importing them from India is profitable for Bangladesh, she said.

Source: BBC Bangla. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.