KOLAR/BENGALURU: Rains might have brought cheer among farmers, but there is no cheer for tomato growers in Karnataka. With good rains in Karnataka as well as its neighbouring states, tomato has been a bumper crop, that has resulted in its price plummeting to Rs 3 per kg. In the next two to three days, it is likely to touch Rs 2 or even Re 1 per kg, much to the farmers’ chagrin.Karnataka is one of the largest tomato-growing states especially in South India, with Kolar, Chikkaballapura, Chamarajanagar, Raichur, Tiptur and Ballari being the tomato-growing belt. It requires one to one-and-half-months to get tomato yield. In April, there was good rain and that has resulted in good yield.
One of the tomato growers in Kolar, Harish said usually the crop is not grown in states like Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and adjoining states — which normally took tomatoes from Karnataka around this time of the year — as temperatures are higher than 38 degree Celsius. But this year, with temperatures not going so high, and with better showers, these areas have had their own tomato crops. This dropped the demand for tomatoes from Karnataka.With no demand, farmers of Kolar and Chikballapur are not getting their costs covered and are incurring losses to the tune of Rs 50,000 to Rs 70,000 per acre.
Chowda Reddy, a farmer from Kuruwara of Srinivasapura taluk, who grows tomatoes on his two-acre land, said for each acre they are spending Rs 2.5 lakh for the four-and-a-half months crop, in each acre they get 30 tonnes (2,000 boxes). This season he sustained loss to the tune of Rs 50,000 in each acre, as there is no demand from North India.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Muniraju, APMC superintendent (Kolar), which is one of the largest markets for tomatoes, confirmed that the price of tomatoes had drastically fallen. “It has decreased to as low as Rs 3 per kilo which had reached Rs 10 last year during the same time. This is because there is more surplus. Last year, we were supplying to Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and other states, but this time since there is good rain in these states, the growers there got bumper crops. So they are not taking from us. Now, with large quantities of tomatoes here, naturally the price has come down with less demand and more supply,’’ he said.
Hopcoms manager SH Keshav said normally during summer with no rain or less water, tomato yield falls, thus price shoots up in June. But this year, it was peculiar and we had good rains. The production has shot up.“Normally, Bengaluru gets 500 tonnes of tomatoes every day, but this time it has almost doubled to around 1,000 tonnes coming in to the city’s markets. But the rate of consumption will remain the same, thus large quantity of tomatoes are left unsold,’’ he said.
According to a senior official from the Department of Horticulture, they had proposed to set up processing units for tomatoes two years back. But then it did not proceed.“If we have processing units, we can store tomatoes in the form of paste that can be used for ketchup. This will avoid price slash. Now that new government has come, we need to approach the new minister once he assumes the office,’’ official said.