Glut in tomato market: Prices plunge to Rs 3 per kg, farmers in distress

KURNOOL: Tomato prices hit rock bottom on Thursday at Pattikonda wholesale market of Kurnool district after excess supply and low demand hit the farmers leaving them in tears.

Prices of tomatoes crashed to as low as Rs 3 per kg during the opening hours of the market yard. They fell much below that mark as the day progressed with more and more supplies arriving at the market. With the prices dropping far below the production cost of Rs 30,000 per acre that the farmers had incurred, they started throwing the tomatoes on the ground and left the market in a huff.

On the other hand at Madanapalle market yard in Chittoor district which was 260 km away from Pattikonda, the situation was better with selling price varying from Rs 6 to Rs 18 per kg. “The reason for the glut in the market is excess supply from Karnataka. Till recently farmers there kept the harvesting in abeyance worried about post-harvest virus attacks. Similarly, local supply also increased altering the demand-supply scenario in favour of the traders, who are calling the shots,” Madanapalle Market Committee Secretary Abhilash told NewsTAP.

Commenting on the peculiar situation in Pattikonda, he said that on a broader scale, each perishable good market such as Hyderabad, Guntur and Madanapalle started receiving huge loads of tomatoes from local producers. “There are no more imports as the tomatoes are highly perishable and they won't stay fresh for more than two days. So whatever we are seeing now are local varieties mostly hybrids,” Abhilash said. He added that the quality of the tomatoes also decided the price.

For farmers in Pattikonda who saw the prices skyrocketing to Rs 200 per kg a month ago, the crash was a shocker. Farmers who incurred Rs 30,000-40,000 per acre and spent considerably to transport the tomatoes to the market yard on rented tractors from far-off villages, decided to dump them at the yard saving the transportation charges for the return journey.

Some of the farmers at the Pattikonda market yard pointed out that it was not the first time that the prices of tomatoes plunged drastically. They rued that there was no cold storage facility or processing unit like a ketchup factory to save them from the sudden market fluctuations.

On the otherhand, the retail price of tomatoes in Hyderabad was stable at Rs 30 per kg and the market price at the Gudimalkapur market yard was Rs 800 per quintal.