People line up at village marts
The prices of some vegetables have been going up steadily over the past month in view of the shortfall of crop at local areas and suppliers from neighbouring states looking elsewhere for better prices.
Locally grown vegetables like tomato, teasel gourd (kantola), green chillies, cauliflower and carrot were affected last month due to the rains.
The case of tomato is particularly interesting. It was being sold at such low prices that farmers were dumping tomatoes rather than bring it to the markets. It is now retailing in supermarkets at prices up to `120 depending on the quality.
The city depends on Karnataka and Madanapalle in Chittoor district during the off-season for some of its vegetables is not getting enough of it.
According to an official at the the agricultural market committee, the city needs about 700 quintals of tomato per day. During the season, the surrounding districts and other states supply up to 750 quintals per day. But arrivals to the city’s markets have plunged to 400 quintals per day, jacking up the prices.
Mr K.R. Vijay Kumar, estate officer at the Mehdipatnam Rythu Bazaar, said tomato farmers from Bengaluru and Madanapalle were sending crops to other states as they were getting better prices.
“Usually the arrivals from Karnataka and Madanapalle fill the gap during off season. We are expecting local crop to arrive in the markets from the first week of August and the prices will come down,” he said.
Mr M. Yadaiah, who grows carrots in Chevella, said, “During rains we don’t harvest the vegetables to avoid damaging it. We are expecting to collect the yield later on.”
Mr Vijay Kumar said that a similar reason was behind the increase in prices of few other vegetables like green chillies, capsicum, lady’s finger, green mangoes. But, the prices of non-local vegetables like French beans, pumpkin, potato, onions, cucumber etc., are stable. Tandur, Shadnagar, Kohir, Narayankhed, Zaheerabad, Vattapally, Tekmal, Papannapet, Medak district and many more, locally grow a range of millets – ragi, fox tail millet (koralu), pearl millet (sajalu) and pulses like green gram (Pesaralu), Bengal gram (Chengalu), red gram (Kandulu), horse gram (Ulvalau), etc.
Since they are fresh and inexpensive, it pays for city dwellers to drive down the distance to stock up for a week. The pulses and cereals as also the fish and poultry come directly from the farm to the market, there is little scope for adulteration.
There could be issues with finding small stones in cereals and grains, but these can be easily sorted out.
Storage of organic food without additives will always pose a challenge and a lot of care needs to be taken to ensure that they are tightly packed and kept safe.
Local markets can benefit from a dose of city cash, which could save them the cost of transportation and will keep them out of the reach of middlemen.
“This will also be a win-win situation for both the farmer and the consumer at large. However, one must be cautious even with items from the local farmer markets,” a regular customer said.
“Not all items are organic, particularly the vegetables as we have very few farmers who grow vegetables organically and the consumer should check this before buying,” he added.