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PRICE VOLATILITY IN THE PRICES OF TOMATOES

 Price Volatility in Prices of Tomatoes.

Its always so very unfortunate and painful to know. Kindly see the news clipping. Recently at Morni Hills, an aware active lady told me, Sir, I assisted my husband, his brother and wife in harvesting tomatoes. Each crate we harvest has 25 kgs, we harvested 725 crates. Our price - as dictated by the market at Chandigarh was Rs 1500/- a crate at the best of times and lately it is Rs 200/- and at times Rs 150/- a crate . Well, a sort of countrywide view follows. from friends. Kindly read on.
I have seen the tomato growing areas in Jharkhand. During harvesting season it is a scene to see and feel happy. All vehicles cycles markets...everywhere tomatoes in the fields on roads and all are happy when they get a good price. The crash to around Rs 3 per kg has caused losses of a high magnitude. In the adjoining states the retail price is ranging from Rs 20/- a kg  to Rs 40./- a kg.  If efforts are made for a national supply chain grid alongside cold stores it will greatly benefit all even after meeting transportation costs.
In UP, MP , Rajasthan , Delhi, Haryana n Punjab the retail price is Rs 8 to 10 per kg. Last year a major farmer was selling tomatoes at the Market @ Rs 8 to 10 per kg and this year its selling at Rs. 5 to 6 kg. Of course its better than Rs 2 per kg at Jharkhand.
Less winters , more sunny days and no heavy winter rains in Maharashtra , Gujrat etc have led to a bumper crop . With no proper storage and processing facility , this is bound to happen... and In Bhubaneswar the customer is buying @Rs.25-30 a kg but the farmer is getting barely the cost of inputs. 
incidentally, good quality mangoes are being sold at 12 to 15 per kg in interior Odisha by farmers including the wadi farmers as there is no cold store.  Near about 40 Organisations/NGOs swung into action for the benefit of Farmers and also to make some profit themselves. They sold Mangoes at a Mango Festival at Bhubaneswar at minimum Rs 40/ kg  making good profit. Everyone benefited...Farmers Transporters NGOs and their Staff. Of course there was the cost of hosting the Mango Festival for a major institution. But if a formal system could be there to coordinate between demand and supply then I am sure there will be benefit for Farmers. But festivals are a one off. How to sell in a sustainable and competitive manner, with educed volatility in prices. 
to come back to tomatoes. Odisha is a bordering state of Jharkhand and Ranchi is 7 hours from Bhubaneswar and the price gap is Rs.2 to Rs.25. These need to be resolved, A chain of mini cold stores with effective logistics / supply chain seems to be a way. processing units but then most produce is the table variety.  And well run FPCs and parallel markets to the official mandis. Let the two systems compete. Bring in laws for controlling monopolies / cartels or the like, but there has to be a mode to control price volatility of this extreme range.  
And I must say, our existing markets are highly opaque, the reasoning if often debated by way of inefficient supply chains but does it include an element of manipulation.   A price differential support mechanism may be could be effective. 





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