Tomato starts appearing in Rajshahi markets

RAJSHAH, Nov 12: With the advent of winter, tomato, an attractive vegetable to the consumers, has started appearing in different local markets of the district here.
 Now the farmers of Godagari upazila of the district here have started collecting tomatoes from their fields and started to sell those in different local markets. Per maund of green tomatoes is being sold at Tk 1,300 to 1,500 in the wholesale markets.
Sources at the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) in Godagari said, the upazila is famous for tomato cultivation. The farmers here produce the country's two-thirds of tomato production every year.
Since the farmers suffered a huge loss in tomato farming last year, they cultivated it in 2,420 hectares of land this season which is 180 hectares less than the previous year's.
The farmers here mainly have cultivated different varieties of tomato like 'Nasib', 'NL-642', 'Slamot-83', 'Bongio', 'Mintu Super', 'Bizli' and few others in different areas across the whole upazila this season.
The farmers here grow tomato in plenty and supply the vegetable worth Tk 2 to 3 crore to capital Dhaka and other districts every year. Though the political environment of the country is well this season, but farmers would not get fair price of tomatoes, sources said.
While talking to The Daily Observer, Zia Ali, a tomato grower of Mohishalbari village in the upazila, said that in the beginning, the per maund of tomatoes was being sold at Tk 1,600 to 1,800 in the last year, but this season it is being sold at Tk 1,000 to 1,200 only.
For this reason, he is worried about tomato prices after some days while tomatoes' supply would be plenty in every markets, he added.   
Abdul Awal, another tomato grower at Keshobpur village in the upazila said, "I cultivated tomato on three-bigha of land costing Tk 20,000 per bigha this season. Now I have already started collecting tomatoes from the field and selling in the markets".
"Though I expected a fair market price, but I have to sell per maund of tomato at Tk 1,000 only on last Friday. I am very disappointed because of low price of the tomato in the beginning of the season".
Few wholesalers of upazila markets said that this season is bad for tomato producers as the price of ripe tomatoes is low in Dhaka and Sylhet markets. If tomato traders buy green tomatoes and sell after getting ripe, it would be very costly to them, and they have to face losses. Tomatoes price would be low if the Indian tomato import would not be stopped, they added.
Toufiqur Rahman, upazila agriculture officer, said that every year tomato price would reduce in the middle time of the season, but this season price is low in the beginning time. Farmers should not worry about it; the price would be increased while wholesellers come to buy tomatoes from different districts, the officer hopped.