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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Growing tomatoes: A gamble on the market -Harish Damodaran

Growing tomatoes: A gamble on the market -Harish Damodaran

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published Published on Feb 23, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 23, 2018
-The Indian Express

Tomatoes from Kolar are even exported to countries like Dubai and Bangladesh.

Kolar (Karnataka):
He has grown tomatoes on just 10 gunthas or 0.25 acres, but hopes to net at least Rs 1.5 lakh from selling the fruits during the coming summer months.

“I am confident about my yields, which should be roughly 12 tonnes. My production cost would work to Rs 75,000. If I get Rs 19-20/kg, my profit will be Rs 1.5-1.6 lakh. But then, one cannot say anything about prices,” says 40-year-old AC Ashwath, who also farms mulberry and ragi on his total 1.5-acre land at Anugondanahalli village of Bengaluru Rural district’s Hoskote taluka.

This farmer transplanted the seedlings of ‘Ansal’, a summer hybrid tomato from Monsanto, in late-December. This crop will yield its first pickings by early-March. He expects to harvest 25 pickings in all over a 150-day crop cycle. Since the produce from these pickings would be sold through the summer, he hopes to realise better prices as the season progresses.

“Nobody can predict these rates. Last year, they ruled consistently above Rs 20/kg, even crossing Rs 40, from June to November. But now, prices are hardly Rs 4 in the Kolar market. Hope, they start recovering by the time of my first pickings,” he adds.

Ashwath is, in official parlance, a “marginal farmer”, but has invested sufficiently in land preparation – applying farmyard manure, making raised beds, putting drip irrigation lines, laying plastic mulch film and planting the seedlings on holes through these. He has further gone in for “staking” or tying the plants to supporting rods to prevent them from falling and also being more responsive to nutrient application. Out of his total production cost of Rs 75,000, over Rs 20,000 would be in fertilisers and pesticides alone.

The above “progressive farmer” practices may well help Ashwath to harvest yields working out to over 45 tonnes per acre. But whether that would be enough to generate a return on his Rs 75,000 investment remains to be seen. For most farmers, agriculture is today increasingly a gamble on the market and not just the monsoon. And not every farmer can really play this game.

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The Indian Express, 22 February, 2018, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/growing-tomatoes-a-gamble-on-the-market-5073393/


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