High yield of tomato in Uttarakhand results in price fall

Haldwani, Feb 28 (ANI): Farmers in Uttarakhand have a problem of plenty, excess production of tomatoes pushing the prices down.

Known as poor man's apple, tomatoes are grown in approximately 1000 acres of land in the state. The farmers used to reap enough profit for their crop.

But this year, the high yield of tomatoes coupled with drying demand in the market has considerably brought down the prices of the crop to rupees 50 per box of tomatoes in the wholesale market.

"The production of tomatoes this year was quite good, but we are not getting the expected price. A box of tomato is sold at rupees 50. We are running into losses. We sell the tomatoes in Haldwani market, which is around 13-14 kilometres from here and we have to pay the labour fee also. The labours charge rupees 20 per box, so we are hardly making any profit," said Tejpal Singh, a tomato grower.

Earlier, tomatoes from Uttarakhand were even exported to Pakistan.

"Not just in Uttarakhand, the production of tomato was quite good in other states as well. Earlier, we used to sell tomatoes in other states and export even to Pakistan," said NK Joshi, an official in Nainital.

And now due to the production of tomatoes in other states and lack of demand in the market, the farmers are forced to throw away their crops and sell it into losses. By Vipul Goel (ANI)