LAHORE: With tomato price increasing by almost 500 per cent in the last two weeks, the farmers, traders and officials hope that situation would normalize in the next two weeks when the vegetable from Punjab hits the market.

The tomato market, however, remained overheated on Monday, with price ranging between Rs150 and Rs200 per kilo in different parts of the city, up from Rs40 per kilo when the rise started two weeks back.

The farmers blamed “impulsive import decisions” for the current crisis whereas the officials and traders hold climatic variations for delaying ripening up of crop in Sindh and creating current stress. The hype added to the common man’s woes, by generating fears of shortage and some panic buying in the market.

Khalil Bhatti, a vegetable trader and importer, thinks that the cold wave in Sindh in early March hampered the ripening process. The arrivals from Thatha and Sukur reduced progressively in the last one week.

“Average arrival in the Lahore market used to be 30 to 35 truckloads, which has now come down to 20 to 25 trucks. This 30 per cent drop translated into demand-supply gap to push the prices up,” he explains, adding the situation, however, at the retail level is much worse than the wholesale market.

At the wholesale level, the price has never gone beyond Rs120 per kilo and that too only for a day (Sunday). At retail, it hit the roof, touching Rs200 per kilo. Even by Monday (yesterday) the wholesale price was down to Rs100 per kilo. The retail market, however, stayed overheated and continued causing chaos at the social level, he concluded.

Abad Khan from the Farmers Associates Pakistan is of the opinion that the reckless import policy has hit the crop, robbing farmers of their confidence both in the government and the crops. “Each time the prices rise a bit -- because shortages and gluts are essential part of the agriculture cycle -- the government has been ordering immediate import to save city dwellers. As long these vegetables are cheap, no one bothers. As soon as prices rise and farmers are in for a chance to make money, cheap imports find their way to domestic market, leaving farmers hapless and only to absorb low prices and losses.

That is why farmers now hardly produce according to a plan and fluctuations, both in produce and price, are even more regular, he claims.

An official of the agriculture department thinks that the situation should start improving in the next one week as tomatoes from adjoining areas of Lahore (Sheikhupura and Gujranwala districts) would start arriving. Once supplies from these cities gain momentum, the price should drop to its seasonal level: around Rs20 per kilo.

The Punjab is so far resisting the pressure to import and hopefully it would continue for the next two weeks to the benefit of local farmers, he said.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2017