EDITORIAL
Government’s move to push tomato cultivation in Goa is a welcome step
There is an interesting quote going around for long: “Knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in your fruit salad.” In fact, tomato is a very interesting agricultural product. Botanically it is a fruit as it develops from a flower and contains seeds, while specifically, it is classified as a berry. However, due to its savoury flavour and use in cooking, tomato is generally considered a vegetable in culinary contexts.
Tomatoes, which flourish in well-drained soil, particularly sandy loams, are cultivated in large quantity in India. They are grown extensively across the country, with top producing states being Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra, along with Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh. All these states contribute over 90 per cent of the country’s total tomato production. Many would be surprised to know that India is the world’s second-largest producer of tomatoes, following China, contributing roughly 10 per cent to 11 per cent of global production.
Tomatoes accompanied by potatoes and chillies arrived in Goa, with the Portuguese upon their arrival in 1510. However, local Hindus for long were sceptical as regards tomato consumption because the goat droppings were used as manure during their cultivation. Today, the fruit has become an indispensable part of salads, besides many other dishes.
It is a welcome decision of the state government to reduce Goa’s dependence on other states for vegetables, and attempts are made to grow tomatoes commercially, with the Agriculture Department ordering 2,000 grafted saplings for trial cultivation. If successful, the experiment could be replicated to grow Goa’s own tomatoes. For a state, which is known for substantial consumption of tomatoes, Goa presently does not cultivate them commercially and nearly 90 per cent of the required tomatoes are procured from outside the state. A surprising fact indeed!
The department has ordered over 2,000 grafted seedlings of tomatoes from a large commercial nursery in Raipur, Chhattisgarh. The saplings are expected to arrive by month-end and will be distributed to selected commercial vegetable growers across talukas. The experiment will be conducted by involving experienced commercial cultivators and by making use of proper mulching and drip irrigation. An official of the department maintains that if the grafted seedlings give good results in terms of yield and pest, as also disease resistance, the department will widely promote the technology so that Goans can have locally grown tomatoes.
Unfortunately the local farmers trying high-yielding tomato varieties by sourcing seedlings from outside the state have not been quite successful. When these farmers transplant the seedlings in their fields, they face serious soil-borne problems. Goa has nematodes and fungi like Fusarium in its soil and when irrigation is carried out these pathogens attack the roots of the tomato plants. Therefore, although the plants grow vegetatively, they become weak and start wilting when flowering and fruiting begin. As a result, the farmers are unable to achieve even 70 per cent of biological efficiency of the high-yielding varieties of tomatoes, as the plants fail to survive, especially during monsoon when soil moisture is high, despite the use of pesticides and fungicides. If the expertise of the Agriculture Department and the efforts put in by farmers yield success, then Goa could strike gold with the tomato cultivation. Goa, besides catering to the local population as also the hotel industry, can also export tomatoes if the experiment becomes successful. It would then be a win-win situation for the state.
