Tomato prices are on fire — and will not come down soon. Here is why

About 5 lakh hectares of farmland come under rabi tomato, and around 8-9 lakh hectares under the kharif crop on average.

So what went wrong this year?

3-4-inch-tall saplings are transplanted in raised beds either in December-January or February-March. The first batch ensures supplies until April; the second feeds the market until August. The crop is ready in three months, and picking continues for 45 days.

Farmers usually rotate their holding to ensure they have market-ready crops upto August. For farmers, the rabi crop fetches better returns. Deepak Bhise, president of the Junnar Tomato Growers’ Association in Maharashtra, said the cost of production of rabi tomato is around Rs 12/kg, while that of kharif is Rs 10/kg. “A higher incidence of pest attacks during the summer requires more control, and thus the cost of production is nominally higher,” he said.

However, farmers suffered a shock in March-April this year. At the Narayangaon wholesale market in Junnar taluka of Pune district, the average price in March was Rs 5-10/kg, and in April it was around Rs 5-15/kg. In May, farmers were forced to sell for between Rs 2.50-5/kg.

Ajit Korde, a sugarcane and tomato grower from Mirewadi village in Phaltan taluka of Satara district, said the crash in prices led to many farmers abandoning their crops. “Farmers who had standing crops abandoned them, and those who were planning to plant a second crop in March did not do so. The present price rise is the result of this double whammy,” he said.

Korde himself grows cane on 40 of his 60 acres, and tomato on 5 acres. But this year, he reduced his tomato holding to just 1.5 acres in March. And Bhise, who usually grows tomato on 3 of his 5 acres, did not give a single acre to the vegetable this year.

“Junnar taluka normally reports around 3,000-5,000 acres of rabi tomato. This year, it is not even 1,000 acres,” Bhise said. The minutes of the June 19 meeting of the central government’s Crop Weather Watch Group (CWG) records 4.64 lakh hectares under rabi tomato, as against 4.96 lakh hectares last year.

In March-April and the beginning of May, prices collapsed because most the crop coming to the market was of inferior quality, and farmers resorted to panic selling. “In South India, which saw excessive heat, the crop was devastated by the leaf curl virus. In Maharashtra, the absence of winter and excessive heat in March-April saw attacks of the cucumber virus,” Korde said.

Faced with uncertainty with regard to both prices and supplies, farmers sold whatever crop they had, causing a glut.

When will tomato prices come down?

Farmers rule out chances of prices softening anytime soon.

24,000-25,000 crates (each containing 20 kg) of tomato are currently arriving at the Narayangaon wholesale market every day on an average — almost half the 40,000-45,000 crates that are expected at this time of the year.

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The next crop will be the kharif tomato — the transplanting of which has just started after the monsoon was reactivated. “It will be only post August that arrivals will improve and retail prices can see any correction,” Korde said.