Express View on price of tomatoes: No red-flag
Till two decades or so, tomatoes were a luxury during May-July and mostly available in the winter and spring months. Their retail prices rising some five times to an average of Rs 100/kg in the last one month is a reminder of tomatoes not being a vegetable for the hot and humid season.
While amenable to growing round-the year, plantings happen mainly during June-August (with the monsoon rains) and October-November. Given a 120-125 days’ crop cycle — the first fruits are ready for harvesting after 60-70 days and the subsequent “ flushes ” every 7-10 days — it means that the supplies pick-up from mid-August and tail-off towards March-end.
But thanks-to breeding of hybrids that can withstand high temperatures, plus water-saving technologies such as drip irrigation and plastic mulching, farmers are now also planting tomatoes during December-April for selling through the summer till August. And they realise better prices too.
Neither should consumers complain nor must the government worry about the current skyrocketing tomato prices. Summer tomatoes, even though cultivated in places such as Kolar in Karnataka and Junnar in Maharashtra, are not supposed to come cheap. This time, the crop itself was impacted because of pest and disease attacks, an abnormally hot February and — ironically — a price crash in March-April that led farmers not to harvest beyond 1-2 pickings . The price spiral now is, to that-extent , a one-off phenomenon because of too many things happening at once. Tomatoes are, moreover , perishable and not amenable to storage, unlike potatoes or onions. Processing of surplus tomato into puree or paste for use when prices of fresh produce spike is a good idea — provided consumers accept it. It probably makes more practical sense to wait for the next season’s crop. In this case, that could be in about two months’ time.
From a larger policy standpoint , overall price-stability is what counts . Fretting over individual items within the consumer food basket — their costing more during certain months — serves no useful purpose.
A year or even six months ago, everything from edible oil to wheat and milk was on-fire . Those generalised food inflationary pressures have clearly subsided . Even if tomatoes are expensive, the likes-of onion, potato and most other fruits and vegetables aren’t. Besides, high prices are an incentive for farmers to produce more. Policymaking should be as sensitive to price crashes as surges .