4 days ago
Tomato price crash forces farmers to dump produce
A sharp crash in tomato prices has left farmers in and around Mysuru distraught, forcing many to dump the produce on roadsides and at the APMC Yard, on Wednesday.
Though there was movement of tomatoes by way of bulk purchase for some time, the prices fluctuated and began to hover around ₹12 to ₹15 per kg. If purchased in bulk or wholesale, farmers were prepared to sell it at as low as ₹8 per kg.
But with supply exceeding demand, the prices crashed and many of the cultivators were forced to dump the produce and return home sustaining a loss.
Bardanapura Nagaraj, a farmer and district secretary of Raitha Mitra, a farmer producers company, said that the cost of cultivation ranges between ₹60,000 and ₹1 lakh per acre, depending on the method and input costs.
But farmers were finding it uneconomical to even harvest and transport their produce, and many were not even harvesting the crop so as to save on labour charges and thus cut their loss, said Mr. Nagaraj.
He said farmers faced the vagaries of nature on one hand and market rate fluctuation on the other and their lives had become miserable. Lack of cold storage infrastructure for perishable commodities such as tomatoes only worsened the situation, he added.
Tomatoes from the Mysuru region are usually transported to distant markets, including Nashik in Maharashtra, as well as to Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
''However, over the past few days, demand from Tamil Nadu has dipped sharply due to an abundant local harvest and sufficient supply, leading to a glut in the Mysuru markets and a consequent crash in prices'', said Mr. Nagaraj.
Apart from the imperatives of establishing cold storage facilities to store perishable commodities, farmers have also raised the demand from the government to encourage industries for value addition to fruits and vegetables in the region.
'We need to encourage the food processing industry, especially tomato-based units like sauce manufacturing units, in and around Mysuru. If such facilities are established here, they can support tomato growers not just in Mysuru but also in neighbouring districts,' said Mr. Nagaraj.
While such facilities in Bengaluru will benefit farmers in Kolar, establishing units in Mysuru would aid growers in at least five surrounding districts whose economy is mostly agrarian.
Another farmer Surendra echoed the concerns and called for policy intervention, demanding the introduction of a Minimum Support Price (MSP) for tomatoes. This would help shield farmers from supply-demand fluctuation , he added.
The recent rains will have no immediate impact on crops, but excess rainfall will reduce the yield of crop in various growth stages in the days ahead, say the farmers. There are concerns that without policy-initiatives translated into action, farmers will continue to bear the brunt of crop loss due to vagaries of nature followed by price crash due to supply-demand mismatch, forcing them into deeper financial distress.
