Tomato price crash puts farmers in a fix

Chittoor , Mar 18(UNI)With the farmers dumping their produce, tomatoes are being sold at just Seven paise per kg at Madanapalle market, believe it or not! In the western parts of Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, where most of the land is dry, farmers are living upto the prediction that the price of tomatoes would plummet to unbelievable levels. The price, as of now, stands at 7 paise a kg.

In the western belt of the district, comprising Madanapalle, Palamaneru, Vayalapadu, Punganur, Piler, Poothalpattu and Chittoor towns, such price crash, however, is an annual event.

The Madanapalle division market where the tomatoe business is worth Rs 20 crore, the farmers are facing the worst ever crisis and have been dumping their produce in the marketyard like garbage.

Cattle are seen feasting on the juicy vegetable.

Madanapalli and Palamaneru,the leading producers of tomato in the western belt of the district, supply them to neighbouring Karnataka and Tamil Nadu especially Chennai city.

According to farmers , the wild fluctuations in the price was not new to Chittoor district and the Rayalaseema region especially the western parts of areas where ryots prefer the tomato crop due to the dry land, as their cultivation was less expensive and maintenance free.

A good number of the farmers plumped for tomato this season , a farmer said due to heavy produce following high demand this year.

Several of them are being forced to sell their produce very low price,and much below the minimum support price.

However, during the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) rule, the government intervened and purchased the tomatoes through agricultural market committees offering remunerative prices to farmers as in other states like Chennai city in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra, the farmers said.

''We have urged the farmers several times about the cropping pattern and advised them to go in for alternative crops. But in view of the previous bumper price, the farmers are still continuing their own pattern, an agriculture department official said.

Some of the farmers are demanding the government to intervene and purchase the tomatoes at remunerative prices.

They also demanded that the sale of the tomatoes by the agricultural marketing committees would ensure suitable price to consumers through 'farmers' bazars in the state.

On the contrary, as the western parts of Chithoor district was posing a grim situation to farmers, the price of tomatoes is more than Rs a 5 kg in Tirupati and other towns in the state.

A farmer from Palamaneru, who had attended the 'rythu sadassu' in Tirupati said had warned the farmers against growing tomatoes this season as the crop would not fetch more than 20 paise per kg.

The embittered farmers demanded that the state government must open tomato juice centres especially in Rayalaseema. But about 20 juice centres in the district are doing brisk business out of mango juice and the fruit as it is preferred over tomato juice.

UNI KNR VV 1814