When Jitendra Solanke drove his tractor loaded with onions to the Satana Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Nashik’s Satana taluka on May 8, he was hoping to at least recover his input costs. What he got instead was 50 paise per kilogram — half a rupee for produce he had spent over a lakh growing. “I had medium-sized onions – not the small ‘golti’(small-sized) variety that usually fetches lower rates. Waiting a full day, only one trader showed up, and this is what he offered,” said Solanke, a marginal farmer from Karegaon village who cultivates 1.5 acres, all of it under onion. “When I approached the APMC officials to flag the low rates, they said they couldn’t intervene. I had no choice but to sell.” The numbers are stark. Solanke invested over Rs 1 lakh this season – money borrowed from a local moneylender. His entire harvest of roughly 100 quintals, much of it damaged by unseasonal rain, earned him Rs 15,000. He is now staring at an unpaid debt of Rs 85,000 – principal and mounting interest.…