Tomato farmers in the red hurt by problem of plenty

ROURKELA: Faced with the problem of plenty and unable to get decent price for their produce, vegetable farmers of Nuagaon block in Sundargarh district on Wednesday distributed tomatoes for free among people at the weekly market of Birmitrapur town. 

A bumper tomato harvest has been recorded in the block this year. But it has brought little cheer to the farmers who tried to sell their produce in the market for as low as Rs 10 per kg on the day. However, they could not find any buyers for their produce. In order to avoid spending more in transporting the stock back to their villagers, the farmers gave away the tomatoes for free to people at the market. 

One of them, Lalu Mandal said he had hired a goods carrier auto-rickshaw to bring his produce to the market. “I suffered a loss of around Rs 2,000. It would have been more had I carried the stock back to Nuagaon,” he said. 

Suresh Sahu and Bablu Kishori too did not want to spend more in carrying their stock back to their native villages. The farmers said absence of cold storage facilities in the block has made their lives miserable. Nuagaon is one of the leading blocks in the State in terms of vegetable cultivation. 

Usually farmers from the block hire small goods vehicles collectively and pay the fare depending on the number of bags they want to transport to the market. If they are unable to sell their produce at the markets, the only option left for them is to dump the vegetables and return. For the farmers of the block, Rourkela is a preferred market. But the price of tomato has dipped to Rs 5 per kg in the city.