VIJAYAWADA: The mouth-watering fruit of tomato is a must in any kitchen across the country and it is no exaggeration to say that its preparations in the form of a dal, curry, chutney or snack adorn the dining table day in and day out.
The price of tomato has come down in the market and growers of the fruit in Rayalaseema are even throwing away the crop due to lack of a remunerative price. Sun-drying of tomatoes seems an effective option to overcome the crisis of excessive production and crashing prices, and to protect the interests of farmers and to prevent wastage of the crop.
Italian sun-dried tomatoes are having a good market demand in the United States and some European countries.
People there relish sun-dried tomatoes along with pizzas and burgers as the dried tomatoes are considered to have more nutritional value. Four pieces of sun-dried tomato have calcium, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, sodium, fibre, potassium and iron with zero fat content.
With this in view western countries are evincing interest to promote sun-dried tomatoes and their processing.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh, at a meeting with state ministers on food processing in New Delhi in 2009, stressed the need for rationalisation and simplification of the tax structure vis-a-vis the sundried food processing industry which has the potential to transform rural economy.
Speaking to Express here, Katragadda Narsaiah of Citizens Council for City Development expressed concern over the plight of the tomato farmer due to lack of remunerative price. He said that the practice of drying vegetables (Orugu) and making of pickles with that was prevalent in the past.
Now people are habituated to ready-to-eat food and the practice of preserving vegetables has almost vanished.
He said that the sun-dried vegetables had more nutritional value.
The government should encourage farmers to take to sundrying of tomatoes and other vegetables and reap profits as some farmers abroad do. One kilo of sun-dried tomato is equal to 15 kg of fresh tomatoes, he claimed.
Preservation is easy as it can be preserved in any container.
In addition the sun-dried tomato can be used as an alternative to tamarind, he added.