Heavy rain in several parts of The Nilgiris district during the last few days and also in many other vegetable growing States in the country is said to have affected crops and prices of vegetables have shot up.
The prices of almost all the vegetables have shot up in Coimbatore.
The wholesale price of tomato on Wednesday was nearly Rs. 30 a kg.
Traders are also affected because wastage is high in vegetables transported from States such as Karnataka and Maharashtra. Coimbatore gets vegetables from different parts of the country. For instance, potato comes from even Gujarat and Agra. The prices of vegetables are expected to go up further in another week as unseasonal rains have affected crops, say traders here.
Carrot, potato, beans, leafy vegetables, and cabbage are cultivated on about 7,000 hectares in The Nilgiris. There are some farmers who cultivate spring onions, broccoli, capsicum, etc. Most of these are three-month crops and farmers usually go in for harvest in June or July.
Prakash, who cultivates vegetables in The Nilgiris, says that rains during the last few days have damaged a substantial portion of crops. So the rates have doubled in the last four days.
Cabbage, which was sold at Rs. 30 a kg was priced at Rs. 40 a kg now (wholesale rate); similarly, the price of beans had shot up to Rs. 80 a kg from Rs. 30 a kg.
Farmers started harvesting early as the prices were good and also because they feared that vegetables would be damaged in the rain.
Spring onions come from Karnataka to The Nilgiris, he says.
An official of the horticulture department in The Nilgiris contended that if the rains had continued for a couple of days, it would have damaged vegetable crops.
However, now the impact is not much.
There were reports of farmers going in for early cultivation of vegetables, especially cabbage, in one or two fields, the official said.
