More farmers see red, throw tomatoes on streets

CHIKMAGALUR: Vegetable growers of Chikmagalur taluk, especially farmers cultivating water-intensive crops like tomatoes, are in a fix. Despite paucity of rain, they have been growing tomatoes relying on borewell water and other resources.
Unfortunately, all their efforts seem to have come to a nought as prices of tomatoes have plummeted causing the enraged farmers to throw their produce on the streets.Only two days ago, farmers in Hubli villages had similarly vent their ire over dropping prices and thrown heaps of tomatoes on the streets.
In Chikmagalur, the prices of tomatoes had stood at Rs 16-18 per kg last week but this week it drastically dropped to a meagre Rs 3-4 per kg. Vegetable growers in and around Chikmagalur taluk said they have no adequate storage facility.
So once the crop starts ripening they have to pick it and sell it in the market or else the over ripened fruits will not be purchased and cannot be sent to far-off places like Gujarat, which is the main market for this district.
Farmers said if prices fall below Rs 6-8, it will not fetch them even the cost of cultivation and so they'd rather not pick the tomatoes and let them rot in the fields.
This way they can at least be mixed with soil and be used as manure, reason the farmers. By throwing the vegetables on the streets, farmers hope to awaken the government to their plight. They want the government to provide them with at least cold storage facilities to keep vegetables like tomatoes, which have very short shelf life.
A farmers' association leader Shashidhar who spoke to TOI said they are demanding that the government provide cold storage facilities near vegetable growing areas, but this has fallen on the deaf ears.
He says the farmers who grow vegetables are not big land holders and hence cannot have their own cold storage facility.
He says it is imperative that government step in to meet at least this demand.