HYDERABAD: While the open market system gives a farmer the choice to deciding where to sell his/her/others' produce, it also facilitates the free movement of traders and middlemen. However, Vantimamidi vegetable market, which is also an open market and was established to help vegetable farmers get a good price for their produce, provides much food for thought.
Vantimamidi is the terminal point for farmers to bring freshly harvested vegetables grown in Mulugu, Jagdevpur, Wargal and other mandals in Siddipet district to be sold to traders, who then sell the stock at various vegetable markets in Bowenpally, Gudimalkapur and LB Nagar. Companies like Reliance Fresh have separate counters at the market.
However, in contrast to the farm-to-market-to-consumer thumb-rule, reverse marketing of sorts can be seen in this market. Business begins at 3 am when farmers and traders make a beeline outside the market. By 5 pm, most of the produce is sold.
One would assume that the entire produce is local, but it's not. A variety of vegetables are also brought here from Bowenpally market, where middlemen procure stocks in bulk that comes from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala at a cheaper price.
Farmers here have been lucky to see a rise in the price of tomatoes and other vegetables in recent days. On Friday, a 25 kg box of small-sized tomatoes was selling for Rs 500-600 and a box of the regular-sized hybrid variety for Rs 800-900. But this is not always the case.
"We often have to keep up with the rates of vegetables coming from Bowenpally. If they bring down the price of tomatoes, we have no option but to follow suit. They can afford to sell their stored potatoes for Rs 30 and chilli for Rs 20 per kg, but for our fresh produce, that isn't profitable," says Nagaraju, a farmer from Wargal mandal.
In what is a paradox, in the evening hours, vegetables from Vantimamidi are again bought by traders from Bowenpally and other markets as far as Siddipet and Karimnagar, to be sold there the next day. Traders also export fresh vegetables from here to other states.
"They are mostly people without agricultural lands who work as middlemen and they need to survive too. But it would be good if they compete fairly," Nagaraju tells The New Indian Express.