Telangana faces huge vegetable crunch

 HYDERABAD: Telangana requires nearly 40 lakh tonnes of vegetables every year but it produces just 19 lakh tonnes forcing the state to depend heavily on procurement from other states. The huge gap between demand and supply is leading to escalation of prices as traders are passing on the burden of transport charges, labour charges and other expenses to consumers.

While crops are being sown on 1.32 crore acres in Telangana, the area under vegetables is a mere five lakh acres. The government is not taking steps to encourage farmers to sow vegetable crops and even stopped subsidies to vegetable farmers since 2018.

According to a report submitted to the state government by the marketing department on the ongoing vegetable crisis and price escalation, the vegetable production at the time of formation of state was 32 lakh tonnes per year. It has now come down to 19 lakh tonnes.

Tomatoes are selling in retail at Rs 120 to Rs 150 per kg. The Bowenpally market has 1,520 quintals of tomatoes of which only 335 quintals came from Telangana.

In order to meet the demand from the densely-populated urban areas, farmers were encouraged to sow vegetable crops in villages located in a radius of 30 kilometres. However, due to the real estate boom in the last nine years, these agriculture fields have turned into real estate ventures.

In 2016, the state government had announced that it would set up vegetable crop colonies by clubbing villages surrounding Hyderabad and other Tier-II cities.  The government even supplied subsidised seeds and fertilisers besides providing transport and marketing for two years

However, the government stopped the subsidies since 2018 without citing any reason. Farmers opted out of vegetable farming later. With this, the project to encourage vegetable farming came to a halt.