Dehydration Project a boon for Rayalaseema farmers
VIJAYAWADA: Tomato and Onion farmers of Rayalaseema, who frequently become victims of the market price fluctuations of their products, finally see a ray of hope in the form of the Onion-Tomato Dehydration Project, started by Andhra Pradesh Food Processing Society (AFPS) in collaboration with the Aurangabad-based S4S technologies as a rural women empowerment programme in Kurnool district.
With the positive feedback from the beneficiaries of the programme, AFPS is now planning to scale up the activity, which it took up in November 2022, benefiting 50 women from rural areas. Now, it plans to support 1,000 more rural women in the next three months.
The State stands first in the cultivation of tomato (41.22 MT per hectare) and third in the cultivation of onion (22.00 MT per hectare) in the country. Tomato is cultivated in an area of 62,000 hectare and estimated yield is around 22,17,000 MT. Onion is cultivated in 44,000 hectare and estimated yield is around 7,22,900 MT.
Tomato and onion is predominantly cultivated in the Rayalaseema districts of the State. In Kurnool district, tomato is cultivated in 3,203 acres and estimated yield is around 1,15,308 MT. Onion is cultivated in 29,494 acres and estimated yield is around 6,48,868 MT.
However, both tomato and onion farmers face issues from time to time during the harvesting session.
Due to heavy inflow of raw material into the market and lack of infrastructure to process and store the commodity, farmers are incurring huge losses due to price fluctuations and wastages.
According to agriculture marketing department officials, the government is providing MSP to farmers and stabilising the market. But as the government also doesn’t have an immediate market to sell the procured commodity. Over the years, procuring at MSP rate has become a burden for the government.
On the other hand, during some seasons when the availability for onion and tomato is less, prices will be skyrocketing causing a burden on the common man. The inflation rate of the country is hugely impacted by prices of agricultural produce, especially vegetables.
In order to solve this issue to safeguard farmers and common man, Andhra Pradesh Food Processing Society has come up with an innovative idea—Onion-Tomato dehydration project in November, 2022.
According to officials, the project cost of setting up dehydration unit is Rs 90,000. In this unit cost beneficiary contribution is Rs 9,000. Remaining Rs 81,000 will be provided by bank as loan in which government will provide Rs 31,500 as subsidy.
Till date 50 rural women of Kurnool district has benefitted from this project and they earn average monthly income of Rs 12,000. As much as 350 tonne of raw materials have been procured from local farmers and converted into 35 tonne of dehydrated products.