This year, the yield in the district was very high compared to last year. Traders from Andhra Pradesh and Karanataka have stopped coming here as harvest season has started there.
“The continued warm weather following the failure of rains during Pongal festival boosted the yield,” said Medical Paramasivam, president of the Parambikulam- Aliyar Project (PAP) Water Users and Farmers Association.
According to him, the main areas producing tomato are Pollachi, Udumalpet, Kinathukadavu, Perur and Madukarai. The farmers who had sold a basket of tomatoes at Rs 300, a remunerative price, during last bogum (crop season), extended the cultivation area this season hoping that the rate would continue.
As the auction price at Kinathukadvu wholesale market remained low for the past several days, the growers dumped the loads of harvested tomatoes on waste lands as the fruits could not be stocked for more than two days. A kg of tomato was auctioned for a rate ranging between 50 paise and Re 1.
The auction price at MGR Wholesale Market and Anna Wholesale Market in Coimbatore, too, continued to remain below Rs 2 a kg.
C R Vasu, operating a wholesale auction shop at MGR Market, said: “The arrival is abnormally huge.
Daily 25 lorry loads of tomatoes from Coimbatore and Mysore are landing at MGR market as against the normal seven to 10 loads. According to Vasu, the price will be very high after mid-March because the farmers have started destroying ripe tomatoes in their fields. The arrival at the market will be normal in a month’s time. Probably during summer the cost will be very high.
K K Kuttan, president, Anna Wholesale Market Merchants Association, echoed the same views.