TIRUCHY: Frustrated with the price of tomatoes – which a month ago was celebrated as the king of fruits, thanks to the margin it brought to stakeholders – crashing to Rs 10 per kg, the farmers from Karur dumped loads of the harvest along the roads here on Wednesday.
From July this year till the beginning of August tomato was priced at around Rs 150 per kg in the State, while the produce was out of reach in north Indian cities where the prices were above Rs 200. While poor yield and damage to the crops due to rains were said to be the reasons cited for the hike, many farmers took a renewed interest in cultivating tomatoes, thereby bringing the prices down to consumers’ relief.
Farmers who switched to tomatoes had started harvesting in the past few weeks and the price of tomatoes, sold at around Rs 50 per kg last week, declined further. On Tuesday, it was sold at Rs 10 per kg in Karur and the farmers left it in the field itself, as the plucking cost would be much more than the profit.
According to the farmers, they are not even getting the amount they spent on harvesting and transportation. Dismayed farmers say they have no option but to dump the produce, which has hardly a few days’ shelf life, on the roads.
On Wednesday, one farmer who carried around 50 kgs of tomatoes he had harvested and dumped them on the road along Puliyur in Tiruchy-Karur highway.
“The price has dropped that low that farmers have abandoned the crop in the field itself to cut down on losses,” said K Kannan, a farmer from Kulithalai, as he dumped nearly 50 kg of tomatoes on the road along Puliyur on Tiruchy-Karur