In an era of agricultural revolution with commercialize concept and aggressive marketing strategies to conquer the bazaars, bringing home veggies – that appeared well in shape, size, and texture and even mouth watering, are really beneficial to health?
The most worrying answer is that the city markets are said to have been well-nigh filled with pesticide induced but luscious veggies carrying severe health risk if the experts are to be believed.
There were bunch of colourful, glossy and well shaped vegetables up or grab in the markets and consumers attracts towards them unmindful of health risk they carries. One among them is tomatoes that considered essential part of the Hyderabadi delicacies.
Known as an all weather crop and an essential part of regular staple food, the juicy tomatoes keep marking their way into the city markets especially the vegetable premier Gudimalkapur where loads of love apples remain top on the list of fresh arrivals.
Beginning with 2310 quintals of arrival on September 1, the mouth watering tomatoes with rosy texture coupled with uniform size are continue to dominate other veggies in the markets as most preferred vegetable of the season with 2711 quintals of fresh arrival was recorded on September 13 followed by Potato and Dry Onion.
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With a maximum price of Rs.1200 and minimum Rs.600 a quintal, the fresh juicy produced is marking into the Gudimalkapur wholesale market all the way from Rangareddy, Nizamabad, Andhra Pradesh, (Madanapally), Anantapur and neighbouring Karnataka. This has brought the price to Maximum Rs.19 and minimum Rs.15 a kilo in retail markets.
However, potatoes are making it to market from Nizamabad, Zaheerabad, Uttar Pradesh (Agra), Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. However, Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh is the primary source of Dry Onion to the city.
Considered as a rich source of lycopene that helps fight heart diseases and other chronic ailments, the tomatoes carry potassium, vitamins B and E besides other nutrients.
These bright coloured love apples are predominantly considered as essential part of the staple food in Telangana without which no curry or a culinary delicacy completes. It is said that in India, the tomato crop was usually planted in March and April and harvested in the late summers but the farmers are now growing it throughout the year to meet the ever-increasing demand in the markets. The green house farming Technology amplified the production with a revolutionary change.
However, the agricultural experts warned of using a hybrid variety of tomatoes that, according to them, serves no health benefit to the humans, and instead leaves a harmful effect on their body.
“Only the organic variety of tomatoes is good for human consumption as it carries the required amount of water and other nutrients intact while the hybrid variety leaves harmful effects on the human health due to use of urea and pesticides. Besides, the hybrid variety increases production cost and crop expenses as the hybrid seeds are very costly that would ultimately take a toll on the farmers. Thus, it entails low income for farmers and high price for customers in the market,” Asserted Narsimha Reddy, an agriculture expert.
Because of urbanization, he said, the production of tomatoes drops significantly in Hyderabad and surrounding districts especially in Range Reddy, once considered as a vegetable hub of the Telangana state.
Most of the farmers gave up their traditional agrarian activity especially in neighbouring Ranga Reddy district – that considered as vegetable hub, and parted away their lands to realtors after consistently incurring loss in farming that identically serves the need of the common people as they too get the required amount of food through farmers sweat.
