Growers seeks export of tomato, onion

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Abadgar Ittehad, a lobbying group of the province’s farmers, has called for a ban on import of tomatoes and onion from Iran and Afghanistan while allowing exports of the same crop.

The SAB organized a protest demonstration in this regard here on Friday in which the farmers decried that they were suffering immense financial losses due to the ongoing imports.

Mir Zafrullah Talpur reiterated that Sindh was producing bumper crops of tomato and onion which were sufficient to meet not only the country’s need but could also be exported.

He lamented that the ongoing imports had led to a drop in the prices of the 2 crops, leaving the farmers unable to recover even the cost of cultivation of those crops.

According to him, the districts of Mirpurkhas division in Sindh had been producing bumper crops of tomato and onion.

He reminded that the same districts suffered colossal financial losses during extremely heavy monsoon rains in 2020, which devastated hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland.

Talpur said instead of helping the farmers recover the losses they had suffered previous year, the government’s policies were causing them more harm.

Nawab Zubair Talpur said a farmer on average spends Rs. 75,000 per acre of tomato crop. But, he added, per acre earning from the sale of the same crop was not even closer to the cost.

The other representatives of the farmers also expressed their views on the occasion.