A cash crop, tomatoes provide high yields and are ready for harvest in a relatively short time. But most growers prefer not to cultivate the crop more than once a year.

Tomatoes can be sown twice a year: in July-August with harvest in November-December, and in January-February with harvest in March-April. But growers avoid the fruit the second time around as they don’t expect good market rates due to extensive tomato crop cultivation in different parts of Pakistan and excessive product supply in all local markets.

According to a 2017 report in Business Recorder the country’s annual tomato production is 543,160 tonnes of which Sindh, the biggest contributor, grows 35 per cent of the fruit. Balochistan produces 27pc of the crop, Punjab 19pc and KP contributes 16pc.

Each year Sindh, particularly Badin, produces thousands of tonnes of tomatoes, but proper storage facilities or small industrial units for value addition — such as for making ketchup — remain conspicuous by their absence

In Sindh, the tomato crop is mostly concentrated in the lower districts (Badin, Thatta, and Sujawal) which are at the tail-end area of the irrigation system and therefore witness persistent and acute water shortages. Hence, small farmers, sharecroppers and landholders in this region have traditionally preferred to cultivate tomato instead of rice.

Asia’s largest tomato market is situated in Badin from where each year tonnes of quality tomatoes are supplied across Pakistan. Presently, the tomato season is at its peak with around 100 to 150 trucks daily leaving the market for various parts of the country.

While growers and small sharecroppers are compelled to sell their produce at throwaway prices — two kilograms are currently being sold for only for Rs5 — rates at urban centres stand at a whopping Rs84 per kg in Islamabad, Rs82 per kg in Karachi and Rs100 per kg in Lahore. This extreme variation in prices has led to an unprecedented crisis for the farmers of Sindh.

A small landholder revealed that: “I sold 35 baskets which had seven kilograms of tomato each; my total quantity of 245kg retailed for only Rs735”. That means the landholder sold each bag for a meagre Rs3.

Asadullah, a poor farmer from Badin, said that owing to insufficient water availability he decided to sow tomatoes this year instead of his preferred rice; but

the price of tomato has declined so sharply that he is now in a loss instead of getting the reasonable profits he would have if he’d been able to harvest his usual rice crop.

A few days ago, on a visit to the Dodo Soomro union council, we saw a small landholder flinging tomatoes in a nearby drain. When we enquired as to why he was doing so, he said that the rates were so low that he could not even afford to pay the cost of transport required to get the crop to market. He decided it would be better to just throw the produce instead.

One of the reasons for the decline in crop prices is the ever increasing supply and demand gap: the crop is currently being harvested in almost all tomato growing areas and is then being rushed to market. Since tomatoes have a short shelf life and there aren’t any proper storage facilities available

locally, the overabundance of the

fruit results in a glut resulting in plummeting prices.

The inability to ensure stable prices leads to another worry for growers: whether they shall be able to pay for transporting their produce to the city as they are unsure of whether they shall even be able to sell their tomatoes.

Growers’ worries are not new. Each year Sindh, particularly Badin, produces

thousands of tonnes of tomatoes, but proper storage facilities or small industrial units for value addition — such as for

making ketchup — remain conspicuous by their absence.

It is time the provincial government steps in and takes steps necessary for establishing appropriate storage facilities and encouraging private investment in value addition units. The proper mix of incentives and infrastructure development will also help increase export of the commodity thereby benefitting farmers, private investors and the government. n

Murtaza Talpur is the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Coordinator in Water Governance project in Sindh.
Iftikhar Ahmed is the project manager in Water Governance project in Sindh

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 12th, 2018