Middlemen send vegetable prices through the roof

Scene III : Saini, the commission agent who bought the tomatoes from Narayan and other farmers, has them loaded into a medium-sized truck. The supply heads for Delhi, and not long after it has reached the Capital, finds its way into domestic and commercial kitchens at the rate of Rs 40 a kg.

Even if reasonable commission, transport and other overheads are factored in, the kilo of tomatoes that were purchased by the agent for less than Rs 10 could normally not have magically cost the end-user four times more. And thereby hangs the tale of astronomically-priced vegetables in urban and semi-urban India. Tell farmer Narayan that the same kilo of tomatoes costs Rs 40 in Delhi and he will laugh at you, incredulously.

The middleman is clearly inflating the price of vegetables in this country. Through a well-networked cartel that operates in farming India, produce is procured as relatively low prices and hawked to the consumer at staggering prices by artificially controlling supply. Narayan’s sale on the morning of July 9 was clearly in distress: a day earlier there was a heavy downpour at his village Chetwara, nine km away from Chomu. In ankle-deep water, Narayan and his family salvaged their tomato crop from his five-bigha. “Tomato cultivation get spoiled during rains and thus we have to collect our produce and get it to the mandi as soon as we could,” Narayan said.

The crop was not yet ready for harvesting, but Narayan and his family were busy clearing the field at a fast pace, hoping that even half-ripe tomatoes would fetch them a good price owing to shortage of tomato in big cities. Just before the sunset, the tired Narayan and his family completed their job and began sifting out better quality of tomato in separate baskets.

At 5 am the following day, the hastily-harvested tomatoes were loaded into a camel-driven cart that was headed for Chomu mandi. Unfortunately for Narayan, the mandi was officially closed because of Purnima. But time, tide and tomatoes wait for none. Narayan did not want to take his produce all the way back to his village: apart from the effort, there was no telling how his prematurely-picked produce would survive the journey. Just as he was wringing his hands in despair, along came the commission agent. Since this was obviously a buyers’ market situation, Narayan provided easy pickings for commission agent Saini. For every one Saini there are at least ten Narayans.

As the morning wore out, commission agent Saini came forward with feigned disinterest to do a deal with Narayan. Narayan feebly demanded Rs 650 per 40 kg for good quality of tomato and Rs 300 for half ripe ones.

Saini, however, offered one price of Rs 350 per 40 kg for Narayan’s entire produce. Narayan immediately gave in and settled for Saini’s price.

Saini went through the same routine with other farmers who, like Narayan, were desperate to sell their produce. But Saini’s tempo had still space to accommodate more vegetables. He then went for other cash crops – brinjal and ghiya (gour) and easily pocketed them at rate of 25 paise a kg and 50 paise a kg respectively.

As there was more space in his tempo, he moved on to the Manoharpur mandi, located 15 km away from here. Here too, the mandi was closed, but some farmers had shown up to sell tinda. Saini preferred tinda, which is being sold at Rs 16 a kg in Delhi markets. But he got it for only 75 paise a kg from Jagdish, a local farmer from Manoharpur. He filled the remaining space of the tempo and sent it to Tilak Nagar mandi in Delhi and part of the supply to Chandigarh.

Narayan had to pay four per cent of his income to Aartiyas, while Saini claimed that he had also paid five per cent of the purchase he had made. The Aartiyas get commission from both – the farmers and the wholesale buyers – because they hire places for holding mandis.

According to Saini, tomato cost him Rs 15 a kg at Delhi after the transportation charges. But, in the same breath, he also told this reporter that he had paid Rs 2,000 for the tempo, which as to go to Delhi and parts of Haryana.

A tempo carries 200 baskets of tomato (each basket of 25 kg). And if Saini pays Rs 2,000 for the tempo, the transportation charge comes to Rs 1.25 a kg only, thus tomatoes costing him nearly Rs 11 a kg. He auctions the produce to vegetable merchants in Delhi and Haryana for a profit of about Rs 5-6 a kg. The merchants, in this chain of middlemen, corner maximum profit, ranging between Rs 9-10 a kg. And local vendors do not lag behind the merchants, as their profit margin is only one to two rupee less than the vegetable merchants. Thus, tomatoes get dear by 26 to 30 rupees, which is being shared by the commission agent, vegetable merchant and vendors.

Some vegetable merchants are at more advantageous position, as they hire their agents and appoint them at Chomu and nearby mandis, thus eliminating `commission’ agents in the link of middlemen. The merchants pay salaries to these hired agents.

At Chomu, one of the main four centres to supply tomato to Delhi, are commission agents from Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Poona. During the tomato season, they throng the Chomu Mandi (about 200 kms away from Delhi) and corner most of the tomato supply at cheaper rates.

More interestingly, these agents have spread their network in the tomato grower villages around Chomu and do not even allow the villagers to reach the mandi. On a road to Chomu off the Delhi-Jaipur highway, there are a number of villages growing tomato.

At Samarpura village, the agents had camped six days ago. They opened a working mandi (in local parlance called `tal’) on a small vacant plot and invited farmers to sell their produce. Farmers were too happy that they would not have to travel all the way to Chomu.

Girdhari Lal, a wealthy farmer from Samarpura village, sold off 10,000 kg of tomato at the rate of Rs 5 to Rs 10. “Initially, I got only Rs 200-250 for every 40 kg of tomato during the auction. But on July 5, there was a competition between the agents from Delhi and Ahmedabad, which fetched me Rs 10 a kg of tomato,” Girdhari Lal said.