Indian man in Norway compares veggie prices, asks if farmers get fair share back home

Lemons at Rs 850 a kilo. Tomatoes at Rs 680. Cucumber for Rs 300 apiece. These were the prices one Indian living in Norway spotted during a grocery run at a local store, prompting him to ask a much bigger question about what Indian farmers earn.

An X user, Vinod, shared a video showing the prices of everyday vegetables. He said that even after years in the country, the figures still catch him off guard.

“Even after living in Norway for years, it still surprises me every time I visit the butikk,” he wrote.

But what is a butikk? It is the Norwegian word for a shop or store, and in this case, Vinod was referring to the grocery store where he spotted the prices.

According to the figures shared by Vinod, organic lemons were priced at around Rs 850 per kilogram, while tomatoes cost roughly Rs 680 per kilogram. A single cucumber, meanwhile, was priced at around Rs 300.

He then compared those prices with what consumers in Indian metros might pay. Lemons, he said, can cost around Rs 90 to Rs 110 per kilogram, while tomatoes may be priced at Rs 60 to Rs 80 per kilogram. Cucumbers, depending on quality, can cost around Rs 20 to Rs 30 each.

That comparison led Vinod to make a larger point about the economics behind the prices.

“It’s 8 times cheaper than Norway, but salaries aren’t 8 times higher in Norway - not even close. Still, we complain as always,” he wrote. Rather than simply blaming Norway's higher costs, imports or salary structures, he said the comparison made him think about the people at the other end of India's agricultural supply chain.

“It just makes me wonder if we're paying our farmers a fair price, enough for their hard work in India,” he wrote, before asking his followers: “Are we failing our farmers in India?”

The post soon turned into a wider discussion about how agricultural produce moves from farms to consumers and who benefits along the way.

One user argued that farmers often do not receive a fair share despite consumers paying more, claiming that middlemen control prices and take a larger portion of the earnings.

Vinod's post, therefore, became less about the eye-watering price of a Norwegian cucumber and more about a familiar question in India: when a customer pays for a vegetable, how much of that money eventually reaches the farmer who grew it?- Ends