It’s a Sunday afternoon and my fridge is empty. I see a lonely onion sitting in a basket in my kitchen. I slice it up, sautée it, throw in some masala and add boiled lentils. I have a simple yet delicious dal to eat with some rice for lunch.

India is the second largest producer of onions in the world. Apart from catering to its own domestic market, it also exports onions to Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Middle Eastern countries. A large proportion of these onions are grown in just ten states of India. But in September 2019, India witnessed a steep rise in the price of onions, owing to their short supply. (Editor's note, Since this article was originally published, Onion prices have continued to fluctuate, rising sharply once again in 2024.)

Nothing explains the onion crisis better than the onion itself. Once you peel diligently through the many layers – government intervention to regulate pricing, late sowing, a poor harvest, lack of a buffer stock and people stockpiling – you find, at the heart of the problem, a climate gone haywire.

The climate crisis is warming up the Indian ocean and altering the monsoon, an important wind system that brings rainfall to the entire Indian subcontinent. Like most crops in India, onions depend on rain-fed irrigation, which is in turn dependent on the monsoon. The onion harvest in India was poor last year due to a shift in the arrival and departure of these seasonal rains. The monsoon, which usually arrives in June, arrived a month late.

Initially, the lack of timely rainfall created a drought-like situation, limiting crop growth. Then, when the rains arrived, they wreaked havoc after heavy downpours continued for days, creating excessive moisture in the soil, spoiling the growing bulbs. This is not a new phenomenon: a 2017 study revealed that widespread extreme rain events over central India have increased three-fold between 1950 and 2015.

‘There is huge evidence – including data from Indian Meteorological Department – that the monsoon has become more erratic and unpredictable. Its cycle has shifted by three to four weeks across India. Scientists predict more droughts in the future, and excessive rainfall in short periods of time,’ explains Dr. Anjal Prakash, Research Director and Associate Professor at the Bharti Institute of Public Policy. Not only does the delayed rainfall spoil bulbs, Dr Prakesh warns that ‘global warming also lowers crop productivity as certain crops don’t do well in warm temperatures. This leaves farmers in a vulnerable condition.’

On top of shifting monsoons, the widespread floods across India in 2019 destroyed the onion crop standing in the fields, and onions from the previous harvest that had been kept in storage. ‘Small farmers stored onions in sheds which are only covered on the top. Non-stop rainfall for days destroyed all the stock,’ says Shailendra Patil, 53, a third-generation farmer from Brahmangaon village in the Nashik district of Maharashtra, a state in western India. Nashik is home to the largest onion market in the country. ‘The last year and a half has been very bad for onion farmers. We have incurred losses for the last three consecutive seasons.’

The impact of this twofold destruction was felt soon in bazaars in the cities. In September 2019, when the prices of onions started to climb, Delhi resident Anju Khan, 35, decided to skip them in her cooking. ‘We had fights at home because my family complained about how bad the food was. They would criticise the government because of it,’ she said.

Anju is one among millions of Indians who suffered from the shortage and subsequent price rise of onions last year. Onion is an essential ingredient in Indian and South Asian cuisines, and an important part of any household’s weekly groceries. 66% of people in India live in villages where families spend more than half of their income on food.

In the eyes of Sadaf Hussain, chef and author of the cookbook Daastan-e-Dastarkhan, onion is a ‘superfood’, not in terms of its health benefits but its versatility in Indian food. ‘The taste and texture of onion varies at different stages of cooking. In northern India, most gravies are onion-based. In biryani, we use fried crispy onions. Onions and kebabs are a match made in heaven. It is also a poor man’s food – people eat raw crunchy onion with almost every meal,’ he explained.

Yet despite such respect for it, the government continues to neglect the hands that grow our food. Little has been said about the onion farmers who were the worst hit by the crisis. Patil’s family did not buy any new clothes during festivals and his son had to drop his plans to study at an engineering college. ‘If the climatic conditions keep changing, the individual farmer will be destroyed and corporate farming, which is only concerned with making profits, will take over,’ predicts Patil.

Usually, onions are sold at 30p per kilo in India. But last autumn their prices skyrocketed. Vegetable vendors, most of whom migrate to cities from villages in search of work, struggled to sell onions for as high as £1.60 per kilo. ‘When the price increases, we sell less onions and earn lesser margins,’ said Birpal, 38, who sells vegetables in Bhogal market in Delhi.

India saw such public furore over the price rise that it had to ban onion exports, causing a supply crisis in Nepal and Bangladesh, which rely heavily on Indian onions. India had to airlift onions from Egypt and Turkey, with Bangladesh following suit. While India had to ask Turkey for onions, despite geopolitical tensions over Turkish President Erdogan’s remarks on Kashmir,[1] Bangladeshis expressed anger at India for failing in its neighbourly duty to supply them with onions.

The price of onions has dropped again, but inflation remains. Studies and experts propose a range of solutions to prevent another crisis. These include investing in large-scale cold storage units, keeping adequate buffer stock and encouraging private companies to make processed onion products. But, in the long term, governments need to work with farmers, enabling a move towards holistic, climate resilient agriculture. Rather than having a policy that focuses on a singular aspect, such as rainwater harvesting or crop diversification, there is a need to apply systems thinking to a whole village, working on the management of natural resources, production cycles and the markets simultaneously.

While my dal might be edible without onion, these crop shortages herald broader issues facing food supplies across vast portions of the region. Hunger and malnutrition are serious challenges in India, which ranks 102nd of 117 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2019. A 2018 report by International Food Policy Research Institute stated that ‘climate change is the most pressing issue facing the region’ and ‘food systems in South Asia are at crossroads’.

Onions are only one part of the climate story in India. With more than half the population dependent on agriculture, the altering weather systems caused by the climate crisis are felt personally. Poor harvests and subsequent food shortages are already impacting Indian food culture, daily life and livelihoods. Urgent action is needed to help farmers to switch to adaptive crops and sustainable farming methods. This story is not just about onions, it is about a coming crisis in our whole food system.