Why Rayalaseema farmers fear a bumper crop more than drought; can the ₹1-lakh-crore horticulture hub change that?

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A file photo of tomato load being dumped on the road due to poor market prices, at Valmikipuram near Madanapalle in Chittoor district. File | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Ask tomato growers in Madanapalle or mango farmers in Chittoor what they fear most. It is not drought but a bumper crop.

That is Rayalaseema’s paradox. Farmers toil for months and reap a good harvest, but lose money because everyone else in the region has a similar yield.

In July, 13,000 tonnes of tomatoes flooded markets in a day, and the price crashed to ₹14.70 a kg. Lower grades fetched ₹8 to ₹10. After spending on crates and transport, farmers got barely ₹3. In kharif 2025, farmers in Annamayya and Anantapur districts resorted to distress sales, selling tomatoes at ₹4 a kg against a cost of ₹6.

The plight of mango farmers is no different. In 2025, Totapuri growers in Chittoor faced rain damage yet had a bumper harvest, and still ended up at the receiving end. The government announced a minimum support price (MSP) of ₹12 a kg plus a ₹4 subsidy, but it never reached the yard. In 2026, prices fell from ₹120 in May to ₹30 in June.

Horticulture scientists cite three problems. First is water. Rayalaseema is rain-fed. Groundwater falls, borewells fail.

“Farm ponds, check dams and micro-irrigation coverage are still patchy. When Handri-Neeva water reaches late, sowing is delayed and harvests bunch together,” a horticulture official in Rajampeta said.

Second is marketing. On a peak day, 300 farmers rush to Madanapalle or Punganur in the same hour. There are no prior buyers, no grading and weak farmer producer organisations (FPOs). Middlemen who give crate advances dictate the price.

Third is logistics. When it comes to perishability, tomatoes have a two-day window and mangoes ten. The region has no cold storage units or pack houses even to meet the minimum needs of farmers.

A tomato farmer and his wife show their crop, which they say was damaged by the El Niño heat, at Kosuvaripalle in Tamballapalle mandal of Annamayya district earlier this month. | Photo Credit: G.N. Rao

“If transport fails to arrive on time, or the yard is full, farmers must sell at whatever is offered or simply throw the produce away. Incidents of tomatoes dumped on the Madanapalle-Punganur Road in 2025 were not about overproduction, but about nowhere to store and no one to buy,” laments Rajasekhar, 38, a farmer from Gurramkonda.

The ₹1-lakh-crore Rayalaseema Integrated Horticulture Hub project seeks to fix this. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman are to lay its foundation stone at Madanapalle on October 2. The project envisages ₹40,000 crore from the Centre under the Purvodaya scheme and ₹60,000 crore in private investment across 201 clusters in 10 districts.

Each cluster will have collection centres, grading, cold storage and market linkages. An Indian School of Agriculture, being set up at Ramireddypalli by Reliance, will bring AI tools and issue market alerts.

“If this project is implemented in true spirit, tomato farmers need not bring all their produce on day one. They can grade and store the produce for three to four days, and send them to Chennai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad based on demand. For mango, it could mean pulp units, pack houses for export and direct linkage to processors instead of dependence on the local mandi during a three-week glut,” said Kothur Babu, president of the Chittoor District Mango Producers’ Association.

“The multi-crore project should compulsorily address farmers’ issues first and those faced by the food processing industry as well. Importantly, we need a separate Central Mango Board on the lines of the Tobacco Board,” said Kattamanchi Govardhan Bobby, chairman, All India Food Processors Association, South Zone.

Farmers recall the promises made by Narendra Modi. In April 2014 at Tirupati, Mr. Modi, then the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, said Rayalaseema tomato could become world-class ketchup if adequate cold storage facilities were available. He described poverty as not only the lack of rain but also the absence of value addition. He promised agro-industries.

“Mr. Modi had spoken about cold storage and the tomato industry in Rayalaseema in 2014. Now, there is the double-engine government. We are still waiting for the promise to be fulfilled,” said Manjunath, 42, from Valmikipuram.

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