Navi Mumbai: Prices of vegetables are not likely to come down, if traders at the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) in Vashi are to be believed. For more than a month now, the price of tomatoes is hovering above ₹100 per kg. In fact, premium quality tomatoes are commanding around ₹200kg in the retail market.
Mumbai receives most of the vegetables from Nasik, Pune, Kolhapur, Sangli and other places in western Maharashtra. The city also receives vegetables from Gujarat and Karnataka. Most of these places experienced intermittent heavy rainfall in the last fortnight impacting the supply.
“Due to heavy rains, crops have been damaged and thus the supply of vegetables has come down sharply. Farmers have just sown seeds of new crops, it will grow in about 1 to 2 months, only then supply will increase and prices will be normalized,” said an administrative official from APMC, Vashi.
Supply lesser than 30%
APMC Vashi is getting around 30% less supply. On July 17, the market received around 430 trucks and tempos laden with vegetables. The normal supply is around 600 vehicles. “The price of some vegetables like the drum stick, cauliflower, okra, and brinjal has doubled,” said the official. He added that even the price saw up to ₹5 rise to ₹7 per kg in the retail. Similarly, the price of green chilli is ₹140kg.
Meanwhile, a shocking video of tomatoes being stolen from a vegetable market in APMC Vashi went viral.
Why tomato is getting dearer
During April-May, the price of tomatoes crashed and farmers suffered huge losses. A number of videos emerged showing farmers from Nasik, and Pune in Maharashtra dumping their harvested tomatoes. They were offered ₹30 for a crate of 20kg. it means that they could not recover even the transportation costs. A similar situation was seen in other parts of the country due to bumper crops of tomatoes.
Finally, farmers stayed away from tomato farming and in fact, there are reports that Kharif sowing is less than 50% than the previous year. It means that there will be no respite in tomato prices in days to come.
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