The Department of Consumer Affairs (Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution) has announced a Tomato Grand Challenge (TGC) hackathon to invite innovative ideas at various levels of the tomato value chain to ensure availability of tomato to the consumers at affordable prices and help tomato farmers get value for the produce.
Key points
- TGC has been formulated by the Department of Consumer Affairs in collaboration with Ministry of Education (Innovation Cell).
- The Grand Challenge invites ideas on comprehensive and focused area interventions in tomato value chain – from cropping and market insights for the farmers, appropriate cultivars (OP varieties or hybrids) with higher shelf-life of the fruits for fresh marker etc.
- The production seasons are also different across regions.
- The peak harvesting season occurred in December to February. The periods during July-August and October-November are the lean production months of tomato.
- July coinciding with monsoon season, adds to further challenges related to distribution and increased transit losses adding to price rise.
- Tomato is produced almost in all the states in India, though in varying quantities.
- Maximum production is in southern and western regions of India, contributing 56%-58% of all India production. Southern and Western regions being surplus states, feed to other markets depending on production seasons.
- Cultivated tomato is related to wild tomatoes originating from Peru, Ecuador and other parts of South America including the Galapagos Islands.
