Tomato prices surge amid thin supplies, heavy monsoon rains

Tomato prices have touched ₹100 a kg in some urban centres, such as Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati.

Tomato prices have touched ₹100 a kg in some urban centres, such as Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati, as average countrywide rates rose by a third in the past one week on the back of lower supplies and harvest-disrupting rains.

Tomato prices surge amid thin supplies, heavy monsoon rains

Blistering temperatures during April-June have hit the output of tomatoes, worsening a shortage triggered by last year’s patchy monsoon. Increased perishability from heat is another reason for shortages, traders said.

The all-India modal price, a type of average, of tomatoes on Wednesday rose to ₹80 a kg from ₹60 a kg a week ago, a jump of 33%, according to official data. This average price captures only the most-frequently occurring rate at which an item is sold and not the lowest and highest price levels.

“Rates depend on quality. Good-quality tomatoes have gone up by at least ₹20 in the past one week. Smaller-sized varieties and stocks that are discoloured are slightly cheaper,” said Sunil Vashisht, Delhi representative of the Karnataka-based Vegetable Merchants’ Association.

Consumer inflation in June leapt to a four-month high of 5.08% from a year ago, driven by food commodities. While core inflation — which excludes volatile food and fuel — has cooled to 3.1%, food inflation has been sticky, limiting room for the Reserve Bank of India to cut key interest rates.

“Food inflation is the main factor behind the grudgingly slow pace of disinflation. Recurring and overlapping supply-side shocks continue to play an outsized role in food inflation,” RBI governor Shaktikanta Das had said last month.

Food inflation in June soared to 9.36%, driven by vegetables, which jumped 29.32%, pulses, which increased 16.07% and cereals at 8.75%.

Prices of tomatoes should fall in a week due to good crop conditions in major producing areas of Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh and Kolar in Karnataka, the consumer affairs ministry had said recently.

In Kolar, picking of tomatoes had started and produce was set to hit the markets within a few days, but rains have strained supplies. “Heavy rains have slowed harvesting and supplies. The harvesting is not yet complete,” said A Vijayalakhmi, an official of the Kolar agricultural produce market committee. Kolar, he said, is the only major supplier for most states during July and August.

Delhi, where prices of superior varieties have hit ₹100 a kg in markets such as Okhla, is receiving tomato supplies mainly from Himachal Pradesh, said Ashok Kaushik of the Tomato Traders’ Association.

In Kolkata, the vegetable has been selling between ₹90 and ₹100 a kg, Neel Dastidar, a commission agent said over phone. In many towns of the northeast, where supplies are often routed through Kolkata, the vegetable was selling in the same price band, Dastidar said.

The roots of the current price spiral go back to last year, when poor rains and leaf curl disease lowered yields and output. A dip in production of green leafy vegetables have shifted demand towards tomato, potato and onion, another reason for higher prices of these items, the government had said in a recent presentation made to journalists.