The sudden drop in prices of red chillies, farmers are not willing to supply chilli at a lower cost. This in simple terms explains the equilibrium of demand and supply gets affected. In upcoming days it seems that there are less chances to increase the supply of red chilli unless the prices increase again.
Guntur, one of Asia’s largest red chilli marketing yards is having a shortage in supply of red chilli this time. It is noted only 1 million gunny bags have arrived. Before this, the arrival started increasing to about 1.50 million gunny bags.
In Guntur mandi, farmers have completed harvesting but are going slow on releasing the crop into the market, “Farmers know supplies are limited and they are anticipating further price rises, so they are delaying sales,” said Alepata Srinivas Rao, a trader based in Guntur.
However, in Guntur No. 334 Red Chilli was recently reported to be trading at $2,08/2,57 per kg with a decline of $1,22. Mostly locally consumed red chilli no 334 is playing between $2,94 to $3,00 per kg. Prices of chilli are different for different varieties.
It was reported that Vyadgi Red Chilli was made at the previous level of Rs 2,75/3,37 per kg. According to the quality of Fatki Chilli, a decrease of $12,24 was reported at $116,25/165,20. Similarly, in the Warangal mandi of Telangana, Teja red chillies were also reported to be trading at $ 2,33/2,75 per kg, down by $0,06. In the coming days, there is no possibility of increasing red chillies in the spot.
Quality of red chilly also affected
Madhya Pradesh also produces large quantities of red chilli. No doubt that Rain affected crops in terms of quantity but also the quality has affected this time. This rainfall led to widespread pest attacks. Although the red chilli arrived two weeks later than its regular time due to the monsoon. Farmers have now been reporting lower yields as the pest caused large-scale shedding of flowers, malformation of fruit and fruit drops.
Medicinal properties, apart from the taste
“Teja” one of the famous for its culinary usage for taste, is also having medicinal properties and being used for the same, in the export market is proving to be a boon for the Khammam Agriculture Market, housing Telangana’s second largest chilli market yard, in the district headquarters town of Khammam. It is being exported to China, Bangladesh and a few other South Asian countries from Khammam.
Concluding facts and statement
Akshay Satija, an Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) trader, said, “Although the demand for chillies is high, the supply has been badly hit. We are trading red chillies for the past 35 years, but have never seen such a supply shortage. Generally, at the byadagi market in Karnataka, the auction of red chillies takes place twice a week and the per week supply, which is 1.5 million sacks has dropped to only 50,000 sacks. The production of red chillies has been affected as the December-January crops are virus-infected and almost 60% of the product has been damaged. The prices of red chillies will either stay constant or rise further, but they won’t drop this year.” Production, which was on the rise in the previous few years, went down by 9 percent in FY22 to 1,866,108 tonnes.