Farmers Take Tomatoes to the Streets as Prices Crash

A sharp fall in the wholesale price of locally grown tomatoes at the Kalimati Fruit and Vegetable Market has triggered growing anger among farmers, many of whom say the market is no longer covering even a small share of their production costs.

Farmers have joined spontaneous protests after traders at the country’s main vegetable trading centre either refused to buy Nepali tomatoes or offered prices they described as unsustainable. Unsold produce is now being left to rot in fields or dumped because transporting it to market would add further losses.

The dispute is not only about one day’s price. Farmers say the collapse has exposed a market system in which producers carry the cost and risk while receiving the smallest return.

Local tomatoes fall below Rs 10 a kilogram

The daily wholesale price list published by the Kalimati Fruit and Vegetable Market Development Committee on Wednesday showed small local tomatoes selling for as little as Rs 8 per kilogram.

The maximum wholesale price was fixed at Rs 12, with an average of Rs 9.50 per kilogram.

Small tomatoes produced through tunnel farming recorded an average wholesale price of Rs 14.60 per kilogram. Large Nepali tomatoes were priced higher, with an average wholesale rate of Rs 38.75 per kilogram.

For farmers supplying ordinary local tomatoes, however, the market rate has fallen to a level where there is little room to recover expenses after transport, handling and trader margins are deducted.

The amount that finally reaches the producer is lower than the published wholesale price.

Rising costs, shrinking returns

Farmers say the cost of tomato production has continued to rise. Seeds, fertiliser, pesticides, irrigation, labour and transportation all require increasing investment, but the price offered in the wholesale market has moved in the opposite direction.

At the current rate, they say, the income from sales cannot cover even a modest portion of the money already spent on cultivation.

Tomatoes are also highly perishable. Farmers cannot hold the crop for long while waiting for prices to improve. Once harvesting begins, they must either accept the price available, leave the tomatoes to spoil or throw them away.

That pressure has strengthened the protest at Kalimati, where farmers say traders have become increasingly reluctant to purchase domestic produce.

Retail prices remain higher

The fall in wholesale prices has not brought an equivalent reduction for consumers.

While locally produced tomatoes are trading below Rs 10 per kilogram at the wholesale level, consumers continue to pay comparatively higher prices in retail markets. The difference between what farmers receive and what households pay has placed fresh attention on the distribution chain between production areas and urban consumers.

For farmers, the gap is difficult to accept. They are being told there is no market for their produce at a time when tomatoes are still being sold to consumers at prices well above the farm-level return.

The situation has raised a basic question inside Nepal’s agricultural market: when retail prices remain firm but producers are forced to sell below cost, where is the value being absorbed?

The immediate anger is centred on tomatoes. The deeper concern is the position of farmers in a trading system where they have little control over pricing, limited capacity to store perishable goods and few options once traders refuse to buy.