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‘ ₹50 lakh in 45 days’: Tomato turns ‘red gold’ for farmers
Now called “red gold” for its current price, hundreds of farmers have abandoned traditional commercial crops, such as beans, toor dal, and tobacco, and are turning to tomato
Belagavi
As the price of tomatoes has skyrocketed across the state, a farmer from Vijayapura district in north Karnataka has earned a net profit of ₹50 lakh in 45 days. He said he has cultivated tomato on his four-acre dry land and expects ₹50 lakh more profit if the current price continues for three weeks.
Like others in Vijayapura and neighbouring Bagalkote and Belagavi districts, 40-year-old Bhimu Bavsingh Lamani of Aliyabad Tanda had earlier grown crops, such as maize, grapes and sugarcane, and incurred losses. With the sudden rise in the demand for tomatoes, Lamani said he cultivated the crop and in only 45 days, he earned a net profit of ₹50 lakh.
Now called “red gold” for its current price, hundreds of farmers have abandoned traditional commercial crops, such as beans, toor dal , tobacco, sugarcane, maize, paddy, and jowar, and are turning to tomato. “Earlier, we used to get a return up to ₹1 lakh only during periodical harvest, Now we are getting lakhs of rupees everyday by growing tomatoes,” Lamani said.
“Like other districts in Kalyana Karnataka, Vijayapur, Bagalkot and Chikkodi belt in Belagavi in Kittur Karnataka region is known for drought and for dry agricultural land. It is used for growing maize, grapes, sugarcane, beans, among other crops. Since the harvesting time for tomato is less and price is also high, hundreds of farmers from these regions are earning in lakhs in just 3-4 weeks,” he added.
Lamani earned profits in lakhs by sending up to 150 trays of tomato to Agriculture Produce Marketing Corporatiin (APMC) at Vijayapur. From every tray containing 25 kg of tomato he is getting between ₹ 2,500 and ₹3,000, which was between ₹800 and ₹1,000 earlier.
About 25 farm labourers along with Lamani’s wife Kamala are working in his field whom he is paying up to ₹400 per day as wage.
“Earlier I incurred losses by growing regular crops. Now, tomato has become a saviour. Neither I nor my family saw such a huge profit in our life,” Lamani said.
An official from the horticulture department in Belagavi said that like Lamani hundreds of farmers in northern part of the state having dry agriculture land are earning good amount by cultivating tomatoes. The harvest period is also less, and timely use of fertiliser is enough to grow the crop. “After the price has gone high, tomotoes are being grown in thousands of hectares, even dry land, and tomatoes are being supplied to states like Delhi, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,” he said, adding the farming community would really get good returns if the current rate continues for 2-3 weeks more.
Karnataka Rajya Raita Sangh mattu Hasiru Sene Belagavi taluk president Appasaheb Desai said hundreds of farmers in Belagavi taluk are getting good returns from tomato. “On several occasions we used to dump the harvested vegetables on the premises of the deputy commissioner’s office as protest for the fall in prices. Now, smile is back on our faces by growing tomatoes,” he said.
