India, Jan. 14 -- Retail inflation hitting double digit being attributed to high food prices, but is it so?

When the National Statistical Office (NSO) declared that food inflation was 14.1 per cent in December 2019 due to spiralling vegetable prices, farmers in Karnataka were already doing distress selling of onions.

The food inflation in December last year is the highest in six years. Three vegetables - potato, onion and tomato - seem to have driven this high inflation. Their prices rose at 37 per cent, 328 per cent and 35 per cent respectively, according to the NSO report. This price rise is on a year-on-year basis.

So, when onion farmers in Karnataka, who were selling at Rs 200/kg just a few weeks ago, had to distress sale at around...