Why Tomato Is Costly in India?

Why Tomato Is Costly in India?

Every monsoon, Indian households brace for the same surprise: tomato prices jump by 200%, 300%, sometimes even 500%. You walk into the local market and find a kilo of tomatoes costing more than a liter of milk. It’s not just inflation. It’s not just greed. It’s a broken system - one that starts in the fields and ends on your kitchen counter.

Tomato Is a Staple, Not a Luxury

India grows over 20 million tonnes of tomatoes every year - the second-largest producer in the world after China. You’d think that means cheap tomatoes. But here’s the truth: the more you grow, the more you lose. Around 30% of India’s tomato crop rots before it ever reaches a market. That’s not bad weather. That’s bad logistics. Farmers harvest tomatoes green, pack them in open trucks, and drive for hours under the sun. By the time they hit the wholesale market, half are already soft, bruised, or moldy.

Tomatoes aren’t like rice or wheat. They’re perishable. They need cold storage. They need quick transport. But India’s cold chain infrastructure? It’s patchy at best. Only 10% of perishable produce has access to proper refrigerated transport. The rest? It’s a race against time - and most lose.

Monsoon Chaos

India’s tomato harvest peaks between October and December. That’s when monsoon rains hit hard. Fields flood. Plants drown. Fruit splits open. Farmers can’t pick tomatoes fast enough before they rot on the vine. In 2023, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka lost nearly 40% of their tomato crop to heavy rains. That’s not a small dip. That’s a supply shock.

When supply drops, prices spike. And since tomatoes are bought daily by millions of households - from street vendors to five-star hotels - demand doesn’t drop. It stays stubbornly high. So when there’s less to go around, the price doesn’t just rise. It explodes.

Middlemen Take the Cut

Here’s where it gets ugly. A farmer in Telangana might sell a kilo of tomatoes for ₹15. By the time it reaches a consumer in Delhi, the same kilo costs ₹80. Where does the ₹65 go? Mostly to middlemen. There are layers - village traders, local wholesalers, city distributors, cart vendors. Each takes a cut. And none of them bear the risk of spoilage. Only the farmer does.

India’s agricultural market is still stuck in a 19th-century model. Farmers have no direct access to buyers. They’re forced to sell to licensed traders who control the mandis (wholesale markets). These traders hold inventory, set prices, and sometimes even hoard stock to drive prices up. There’s no transparency. No competition. Just power.

Input Costs Are Rising

Even if you manage to grow tomatoes, the cost to do so is climbing. Fertilizer prices jumped 50% between 2022 and 2024 after global supply chains broke down. Diesel for tractors? Up 30%. Labor? Farmers now pay ₹500-700 per day to hire pickers - double what they paid five years ago.

And then there’s water. Tomato plants need steady irrigation. But groundwater levels are falling across Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Farmers are forced to dig deeper wells. Install expensive drip systems. Pay more for electricity to pump water. All of that gets added to the final price.

Climate Change Isn’t a Future Threat - It’s Here

Tomatoes thrive between 20°C and 28°C. But in parts of India, summer temperatures now regularly hit 42°C. At that heat, flowers drop. Fruit doesn’t set. Plants stop producing. In 2024, farmers in Rajasthan reported 60% lower yields because of heat stress. No one talks about this enough. But climate change isn’t just about droughts and floods. It’s about tomatoes that won’t ripen.

Even the pests are changing. Whiteflies and fruit borers are appearing earlier and in bigger numbers. Pesticides used to work. Now, they’re less effective. Farmers spray more often - spending more money and risking chemical residue on the fruit. The cost? Passed on to you.

Why Doesn’t India Just Import More?

You’d think importing tomatoes from Turkey, Egypt, or the U.S. would help. But it doesn’t. India imposes high import duties on tomatoes - sometimes over 100% - to protect local farmers. It sounds fair. But here’s the catch: the protection doesn’t help small farmers. It helps big traders who control the domestic supply. Importing would flood the market with cheaper tomatoes and break the cartel. So the government blocks it.

Meanwhile, countries like Israel and the Netherlands grow tomatoes in climate-controlled greenhouses. They use hydroponics. They harvest year-round. They ship in refrigerated containers. Their tomatoes cost half as much. But India’s system isn’t built for efficiency. It’s built for control.

What Can Be Done?

There are fixes - but they need political will, not just good ideas.

• Build cold chains. Every district needs refrigerated warehouses and transport. The government has promised this for years. Progress? Slow.
• Let farmers sell online. Platforms like eNAM (Electronic National Agricultural Market) exist - but barely used. Farmers need training, smartphones, and trust to bypass middlemen.
• Support protected cultivation. Greenhouses and net houses reduce losses by up to 70%. But they cost ₹5-10 lakhs to build. Most farmers can’t afford it. Subsidies are too small.
• Price stabilization funds. When prices spike, the government should release stock from buffer reserves. But they rarely do - and when they do, it’s too little, too late.

Some states are trying. Maharashtra launched a tomato price stabilization scheme in 2023. They bought surplus from farmers at ₹25/kg and sold it at ₹40/kg in urban markets. It helped - for a few months. Then funding ran out.

It’s Not Just About Tomatoes

This isn’t a tomato problem. It’s a food system problem. The same pattern repeats with onions, potatoes, and chilies. India produces enough food. But it wastes too much, moves it too slowly, and lets too many people profit from scarcity.

When you pay ₹120 for a kilo of tomatoes, you’re not just paying for the fruit. You’re paying for broken roads, idle cold rooms, corrupt middlemen, and climate chaos. And you’re paying for a system that refuses to change.

The next time you see a tomato price shock, don’t blame the vendor. Blame the system. And ask: who’s really in control here?

Fixing tomato prices won’t happen overnight. But it starts with understanding why they’re so high - and who benefits from keeping them that way. Until then, every ₹120 tomato you buy is a reminder of a broken system.