Union Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday said the Modi government is farmer-friendly which is giving remunerative prices to farmers, thus ensuring that fair prices is its priority and commitment.

He said earlier 40 per cent export duty was levied on onions, but when the price of onions started falling and farmers started getting less price, the government decided to reduce the export duty on onions from 40 per cent to 20 percent.

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“Today the government has decided that the 20 per cent export duty should also be completely removed. The removal of export duty on onions will enable our farmers’ hard-earned produce to reach global markets duty-free, securing better and more remunerative prices,” the Union Minister said.

Earlier on March 22, the Centre announced that it has withdrawn 20 per cent duty on onion export, effective from April 1. A notification to this effect was issued by the Department of Revenue on Saturday on the communication of the Department of Consumer Affairs.

To ensure domestic availability, the government had taken measures to check export by means of duty, minimum export price (MEP) and even to the extent of export prohibition for almost five months, from December 8, 2023 till May 3, 2024. The export duty of 20 per cent which now stands removed has been in place from September 13, 2024.

“Despite export restriction, the total onion export during FY 2023-24 was 17.17 LMT and FY 2024-25 (till 18th March) was 11.65 LMT. Monthly onion export quantity had picked up from 0.72 LMT in September, 2024 to 1.85 LMT in January, 2025,” the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said.

The decision stands as another testament to the government’s commitment to ensuring remunerative prices to farmers while maintaining affordability of onion to the consumers at this crucial juncture when both mandi and retail prices have softened following expected arrival of rabi crops in good quantities.

Even though the current mandi prices are above the level during the corresponding period of previous years, a decline of 39 per cent is observed in the all-India weighted average modal prices. Similarly, all-India average retail prices recorded a decline of 10 per cent over the past one month.