Cropping patterns this season have skewed the price of onions and tomatoes. While onions are selling for for Rs. 2 - Rs. 6 in the wholesale market and averaging Rs. 12 in retail outlets, a kg of tomatoes is going for a relatively high Rs. 25 a kilo.
Based on the trading price last season, farmers changed their crop patterns growing more onions and fewer tomatoes, leading to an imbalance in the supply-demand cycle. This, in turn, has affected prices, say traders.
The crash in onion prices is the result of glut in the market. Last year at this time, onions were selling at Rs. 60 to Rs. 80 a kg. However, traders say that the high prices onions fetched last year is the precise reason why this year has seen rates plummet. “It’s a cycle. Following the high prices for onions last year, the acreage of onions has increased many fold this year across regions in Maharashtra, North Karnataka and Chitradurga. We have also seen a good crop across regions and the market is being flooded with onions, resulting in the crashing prices,” said Ravi Kumar, of Bangalore Potato and Onion Traders Association, APMC, Yeshwantpur.
Cauvery issue
The Cauvery dispute also played a role in this scenario. “Tamil Nadu is one of the major buyers of onions from Karnataka. However, owing to Cauvery dispute, the movement of goods was disrupted, taking away a major market, which has further led to the crash,” Mr. Kumar added.
The situation is so bad that many farmers in North Karnataka are not even harvesting the crop, for that will only add to their losses. Despite having a good yield, several of them are forced to leave the crop as it is and plough the farmland so that it can become manure for the next season in Hubballi and surrounding districts.
With tomatoes, the situation is the exact opposite. Following a period of prices that were as low as Rs. 6 a kg in the wholesale market, tomatoes are now selling at Rs. 25 in the wholesale market and Rs. 30 in the retail market.
A senior procurement officer with a prominent retail chain in the city said that following the low prices during the last crop, many farmers in Kolar and Devanahalli belt did not grow them this season. Tomato is a three month crop.
Muniswamy Gowda, a farmer in Devanahalli, who has planted tomatoes said that the acreage had reduced by more than 70 per cent for the present crop in his area, and has fetched him a good price.
“Furthermore, the lack of rain and humidity has brought down the quantity of the crop resulting in climbing rates for the available crop,” said N.N. Sriram, a tomato cultivator in Kolar.
