HYDERABAD: A street vendor Abdul Majeed, carrying small amounts of different vegetables looked worried about the changing temperament of regular customers in the areas he frequents.
He said the haggling had increased manifold, and he was often accused of inflating prices. It was getting embarrassing, he added. “I pay Rs190-Rs200 for one kilogram tomato at the mandi, and sell it at the same price, but customers blame me, as if I fix the prices of all items myself,” Abdul said.
The high price of tomatoes has forced him to opt out of buying the commodity in large quantities from the wholesale market. “I used to bring 30-40kg of tomato with bundles of other seasonal vegetables, but now I reluctantly take only 2kg tomato and similar amount of other varieties just to sell at peoples doorsteps to earn a little for the survival of my family,” he shared while lamenting the attitudes and rudeness of many customers.
Majeed has 18 years of experience selling vegetables street to street in Hyderabad, but he was unable to guess the reasons for the recent hike in vegetable prices.
“Prices of almost all varieties of vegetables, mainly tomato, chilli, coriander and onion have crossed the limits. Due to higher prices of food items, customers have their own thoughts for price comparison and retailers have to face their anger,” he said, adding that everybody believes that vendors were responsible of fixing prices.
Muhammad Mujeeb, another vegetable vendor, who owns a small shop, said the same. “People are reluctant to buy even half a kg of tomato.” Shopkeepers and vegetable vendors travel early in the morning to buy fresh commodities from the wholesale markets, after that when we face all the anger on prices, it becomes embarrassing and difficult situation for us to tackle, he added.
Gulab Shah, one of the tomato producers in Thatta, keeping eye over the changing prices of food items links the situation with weather change. Badin, Thatta and parts of Tando Muhammad Khan and Tando Allahyar districts were major vegetable producing areas where tomato, chilli, cucumber, tauri (Ridge Gourd), and other varieties were grown.
Farmers cultivate tomato during the months of July and August, which they usually bring in the market during late October and early November. “Thatta and Badin produced enough to meet Sindh’s demand for tomato and chilli, leaving some quantity to feed Punjab as well,” Gulab said.
But this year, due to heavy rains, the farmers could not cultivate their valuable tomato in Badin and Thatta. “Some farmers initiated to develop nurseries, but rains destroyed the seedling, putting farmers in a helpless situation. That is why people in Sindh are forced to buy tomato at Rs200-Rs300/kg and chilli at Rs300-Rs400/kg,” he added.
Farmers in these two districts cultivated tomato quite late in the month of October, which might come to the market in December. “However, for now, markets in Sindh are receiving tomato from parts of Balochistan and Sindh,” he added.
Gulab also blamed the unexpected rains in Thatta during September, October and November for the delay in tomato cultivation. The delay could result in low productivity of tomato, ie 2,000 bags (of 15kg)/acre instead of the normal 5,000 bags/acre.
Sindh Grower Alliance (SGA) President Nawab Zubair Talpur said that on one side climate change has affected crop pattern, while on the other, producers were being offered unauthorised seeds in the open market. The provincial government was yet to design an agriculture policy keeping in view the suggestions of growers to ease the burden on poor consumers.
He said common people could not afford to buy food for their children, as it was available at exorbitant prices. “We have lost chilli and tomato crops due to heavy rains and extreme heat this year,” Zubair Talpur said, while suggesting the government for a mechanism to control prices of food items and save people, who were committing suicide due to the economic pressure.
Altaf Mahesar of Basic Development Foundation (BDF), who leads a farmers’ network in Dadu district to promote action-based research, said agriculture was the called backbone of the economy, but the situation was changing. Food producers failed to get proper rates for their products, because of the middlemen’s monopoly.
He said farmers in Swat produce and supply tomato to Sindh and other parts of the country at Rs100-Rs120/kg during this season. Consumers of Sindh were forced to rely on imported food items or receive products at high prices from other parts of the country.
He demanded the Sindh government to announce support prices of all food items, including commodities like wheat to avoid fear of food insecurity.
The government always fixes support price of wheat only, while producers of vegetables face hardships due to a lack of mechanism in the markets, he said, adding that if volatile prices of food items continued, ordinary consumers would pay a heavy price due to government negligence.
Prof Muhammad Ismail Kumbhar, a researcher at Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam said climate change was the primary cause of delaying cultivation and low productivity of all vegetables. The visible factors include rainfall, extreme heat, scarcity of irrigation water and increasing salinity, which have affected vegetable productivity.
He advised small-scale farmers to introduce tunnel and container farming by maintaining temperature to get reasonable productivity of vegetables.
