Hyderabad farmers destroy crops in protest of govt's decision to import tomatoes

HYDERABAD:  Farmers on Sunday staged a protest and destroyed their ready-to-reap harvest against the government's decision to import tomatoes. 

As reported by Geo.tv,  the Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) said that the process of importing tomatoes from abroad has downgraded the prices of locally-grown ones, thus leading to losses for the farmers. The board said that the federal government was informed about the situation one-and-a-half months ago but it did not stop the import process.

As imported tomatoes continued to be supplied to the markets, the rates of local tomatoes drastically went down.

According to SAB, farmers are selling tomatoes for Rs11 to Rs15 per kilogramme at the moment, and prices are predicted to be further downgraded to Rs5 per kg.