Tomatoes Producer India
Its a 74 day long journey for a seed of tomato to become a juicy, red, sweet and sour gravy, soup, salad or sambar in you menu. The tomatoes encounter with different actors in this journey is facinating and interesting. Every tomato has a different story to tell us. Somedays they are valued like gold and somedays they are dumped like garbage.
India is the second largest producer of tomatoes. Andhra, Karnataka and Maharstra produce huge loads of tomatoes every year. The growers plan all the 3 crops of tomatoes in these areas to ensure year round production. Tomatoes grow in moderate climate and dont like extreme heat or cold. The baby tomato plants are grown in nurseries. Once the small plants are 4 weeks old they are transplanted to the field. Strings and sticks are attached to the young vines to help them grow giving each tomato equal amount of sunlight and strength. They flower in just a few weeks from planting and it turns into bright red tomatoes ready for harvest. The farmers harvest the tomatoes by hand as they are delicate. They pluck them in crates and bring it to the mandi for auctioning. After grading and sorting through auctioning the price is being fixed based on the arrival quantity to the mandi, seasonality, destination market supply fluctuations and quality. From the base market , in lorries they are transported to the terminal markets in the destination and reaches your home through a pushkart vendor selling outside your home or a bigbasket guy delivering at your door step to give you the aroma and taste to your cooking