Tomatoes clock record price at Rs 2,200 for 15 kg at Kolar market

Tomato rates reached a record high of Rs 2,200 for a 15-kg box at Asia's second largest tomato market, the Kolar APMC yard, here on Tuesday.

The consignment brought by farmer Ashwanth from Vaijakur village in Chintamani taluk fetched the record rate when it was auctioned at one of the mandis here.

The rate per kg comes to around Rs 150. Ashwanth had brought 36 boxes of the now-prized vegetable.

At another mandi, tomatoes were sold for the next highest price of Rs 2,000 for a 15-kg box, breaking the earlier record price of Rs 1,600 for the same quantity and quality there.

On Tuesday, 70,600 boxes of the vegetable, amounting to 10,590 quintals, arrived at the Kolar market.

They were loaded for transportation into nine lorries bound for Tamil Nadu, six lorries each for Chhattisgarh, Haryana and West Bengal, five lorries to Maharashtra and three lorries each to Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

Hundreds of traders and middlemen from different states, including those from north India, took part in the auctions at the APMC yard here.

Tomato prices are on the rise and are touching Rs 200 a kg in many parts of the country, with rains damaging the crops.

Tomato growers and farmers' leaders have appealed to the police and APMC officials to provide protection to them.

This comes in the backdrop of incidents of tomatoes being stolen at many places in the wake of the rising prices of the commodity.

'Sell at FPSs'

They demanded that tomatoes should be sold at subsidised rates at fair price shops, like in Tamil Nadu, or at Nandini milk outlets.

Supply of the vegetable has largely been hit, with crops being damaged to the extent of 50-70% due to various diseases affecting them.

'Nurseries supplying disease-hit saplings'

Experts at the CAR Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Kolar believe that nurseries were supplying disease-hit tomato saplings to farmers as they were being grown unscientifically there.

It is said that the disease is showing up in the saplings within 30-35 days of being planted.

The experts have appealed to the farmers to buy tomato saplings from nurseries where they are grown by scientific means.

District In-charge Minister Byrathi Suresh has directed the Kolar deputy commissioner to visit the nurseries along with experts and submit a report on the matter.

He has suggested that the nurseries be brought under the purview of the horticulture or the agriculture department, so that saplings can be grown by scientific means.