Value Addition of Onion Markets of Pabna Districts in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is principally an agricultural based country dominated by crop production. In Bangladesh onion mostly use for species which gives aroma taste and flavor to the food materials. The present study was designed to measure supply chain analysis of onion markets and to estimate the value addition of onion in selected areas of two upazilas of Pabna district. Primary data were collected from the onion growing area of Sujanagar upazila and Santhiya upazila under Pabna district. Twenty farmers and fifty traders were selected through purposive sampling and simple random sampling procedure. Simple descriptive methods were used to analyze the data. The major findings of the study reveal that onion production is profitable. In the production and marketing system of Onion, many supply chain actors were involved such as Faria, Bepari, Arathdar, wholesaler and retailer. Marketing of onion produced in Sujanagar and Santhiya upazila was moved from the hands of producers to the hands of consumers through six separate chains. The highest sales price per 40Kg of onion received by retailer was Tk. 1625 and the lowest sales price received by farmer was Tk. 1190. In value chain, highest value (29.14 percent) was added by farmer and lowest value (3.97 percent) was added by Arathder of the total value addition. Farmers had the highest proportion of net marketing margin which was about 42.51 percent of total net marketing margin. Retailers had the second highest portion of net marketing margin of onion. On the contrary, Arathdar had the lowest net marketing margin of onion which was only 3.82 percent of total net marketing margin of onion. The study also identified some problems and constraints faced by the onion farmers and trader suggested some recommendations to improve the present production and marketing situation so that per hectare yield of onion and marketing facilities would possibly be increased.