Andhra Pradesh: Madanapalle tomato farmers pinning hopes on ‘Summer fortunes’

Arrivals, prices of produce dip in Madanapalle market

About 15,000 tomato growers of Madanapalle revenue division, considered the largest tomato belt in Asia, are pinning their hopes on the yields in summer, expecting good fortunes, which they had missed for the last two years owing to COVID pandemic.

At present, the tomato is raised in about 6,000 hectares, with a one-month delay in transplantation procedure. While several parts of the country see the closure of their crop patterns in summer, Madanapalle holds the monopoly of bumper yields, thanks to the congenial climate which never scales beyond 30 degrees Celsius all around the year.

On Saturday, the arrival of stocks at the Tomato market yard at Madanapalle was less than 200 tonnes, though the price was between ₹7 and ₹9 per kg for the first quality, followed by ₹6.40 a kg for the second grade.

The officials of the Horticulture department said that going by the present trend, the farmers were not facing any losses to their crops. An official at the market yard refuted the rumours that the price of tomato had slipped to ₹3 a kg. “In such a case, it happens outside the market yard, involving the third-grade variety,” he said.

Deputy Director (Horticulture) B. Srinivasulu told The Hindu that the highlight of the Madanapalle belt was that farmers here would hold the advantage of supplying fine grade of tomatoes in the bulk to other parts of the country during summer. “Their monopoly in non-summer is now facing tough competition from all over the country, with predominant cultivation in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and other northern States,” he said.

Eeshwar Reddy, a tomato grower at Tamballapalle, said that many farmers in the Madanapalle division took a break from tomato cultivation in 2020 and 2021 owing to the COVID pandemic. “Several of them are finding it difficult to resume the field operations, which requires substantial capital. They are also not sure of profits even if the crop is raised. I used to cultivate about 10 acres before the COVID, but this year I have limited sowing to just two acres. It might take a couple of years more for the farmers to get back to the former levels of agri-operations in the region,” he said.

Meanwhile, the tomato price in the retail market all over Chittoor district stood at ₹10 a kg, for the considerably good quality variety. “Despite the low price, compared to the previous three months, the response from customers is not encouraging. The reason is that the present yield coming to the markets is having a shelf-life of five days to a week, forcing the customers to minimise their purchases,” said Ganesh, a vegetable vendor in Chittoor.