Rains drive up price of greens, kitchen budgets feel the blues

Vegetable prices have nearly doubled in one month due to dip in production

RANCHI/JAMSHEDPUR/DHANBAD: Kalpana Singh, 42, purchased a piece of cauliflower (weighing 600 gms) for `40 in Ranchi. However, she paid `50 for a kilogramme last week. Increase in veggie prices is forcing her to cut down the quantity to maintain the kitchen budget.

Kalpana is not a lone case. All the kitchen managers in the state are undergoing a similar crisis due to an unprecedented rise in vegetable prices during the monsoon season. They claimed that their kitchen budget had gone up by 40% this July.

Retail prices of monsoon vegetables including pointed gourd, pumpkin, brinjal, beans, lady fingers, capsicum, carrot, green chilli, coriander leaf, bitter gourd have nearly doubled in last one month.

Jharkhand is a surplus state in vegetable production. According the figure of the Jharkhand state horticulture mission (JSHM), the state produces around 38 lakh metric tons of vegetables annually against the requirement of 30 lakh metric tonne. The state exports around one million tons of vegetables to other states every year.

The vegetable growers said the vegetable production went down during June and July every year. “In summer, we grow vegetables in low land areas. With the arrival of the rainy season, we shift to upland areas,” said Nakul Prasad, a vegetable grower from Ranchi’s Pithoria area. He, however, said that the price would start coming down from August, as the new vegetables arrivals would hit the market.

No vegetable is below `40 in Ranchi. Almost similar is the situation in Jharkhand’s other cities including Jamshedpur and Dhanbad. The prices of lady finger, tomato, pointed gourd in Ranchi is `40/kg against `20, `15, `25 a month back.

Horticulture scientists of the Birsa Agriculture University (BAU) said most of the farmers also shift from vegetable growing to cereal growing in the rainy season, which also impacts the production.

The retailers said the demand for vegetables also increases in the month of Shravan as a large number of Hindu families turn vegetarian during this month. Besides, the demand also rises in Deoghar where over 40 lakh devotees visit Baba Baidyanath Dham during the month to pour Gangajal on Shiva idol. The dealers of Bihar and West Bengal are also diverting stocks to Deoghar, retailers said.

In Jamshedpur, dilapidated road condition is also impacting the vegetable price owing to increase in demand due to delayed arrivals. Sanjay Prasad, wholesaler in Sakchi market, said, “Besides, delays and consequent short supply, some of the items including capsicum and beans are available at minimum stock due to low productivity. These reasons jointly encouraging price.”