High tomato prices yield crorepati farmers in Karnataka

After years of suffering due to crop loss and low prices, tomato growers have turned crorepatis this year owing to the humble fruit.

Traders and officials at the Kolar Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), Asia’s second-largest tomato market, say at least 15 farmers from Mandya, Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts have turned crorepatis this season.

CMR Srinath, a trader at the Kolar APMC, said, “One farmer from Mandya, who had cultivated tomatoes on nearly 10 acres of land, earned nearly Rs 4 crore in the last two months.”

Srinath said on average, the farmer supplied 1,000 boxes to the Kolar APMC each day for 20 days. The minimum price he received for his high-quality yield was Rs 1,800 per box (each box has 15 kg tomatoes).

“I used scientific methods to cultivate tomatoes. This helped me improve my yield despite the fact that my plants were affected by virus and white flies,” said the farmer who earned over Rs 4 crore. He requested not to be named.

Srinath said top-quality tomatoes, which are being purchased by West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab and other north Indian states, are being traded at Rs 1,800 to Rs 2,200 per box while second-grade tomatoes being supplied to Bengaluru and other parts of the state are being traded wholesale at Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 a box. At retail, they are being sold for Rs 90 to Rs 110 per kg, he said.

It may look like the farmers are reaping huge profits. However, a majority of them say they are making up for the losses sustained over the last three years.

“In 2021-22 and 2022-23, we sustained huge losses as traders purchased one box of tomatoes for a meagre Rs 300 to Rs 400. Even this year, we are harvesting only 35% to 40% of the total expected yield due to white flies and other diseases,” said Prakash MP, a farmer of Malavalli in Mandya district. This season, he earned Rs 90 lakh from his six-acre tomato farm.

He had taken additional precautions by cultivating tomatoes under green sheets, yet he lost nearly 40% to 50% of the crop to diseases.

Ravi T N, a tomato farmer from Tharanahalli in Malur taluk, who cultivated tomatoes on 12 acres of land and earned more than Rs 70 lakh, says his earnings could have been higher if the crops did not catch a disease.

“I cultivated tomatoes using the water from the KC Valley project, which supplies treated drain water from Bengaluru to parts of Kolar district. This is the root cause of lower yield this year,” he said.

Some farmers who sustained losses due to tomato cultivation in the last three years played safe and did not grow the fruit on a large scale.

Sampath Kumar of Kolar district said he cultivated the fruit on only four of his 20 acres of land and earned Rs 8 lakh per acre. “This high price has evened out my previous year’s losses,” he said.

Vijaylakshmi, Kolar APMC secretary, said the highprices do not show the full picture.

“They (farmers) are still under losses as they are harvesting only a portion of their yield,” she said.

She expects the prices to remain on the higher side for the next one-and-a-half to two months, when the saplings planted now will start yielding fruit.