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

Ask tomato farmers in Madanapalle or mango farmers in Chittoor what they fear most. It’s not a drought, it’s a harvest.

This is the Rayalaseema 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 per day flooded the markets and the price fell to ₹14.70 per kg. Lower grades fetched ₹8 to ₹10. After spending on crates and transport, the farmers got barely ₹3. In 2025, farmers in Annamayya and Anantapur districts resorted to distress sales, selling tomatoes at ₹4 per kg at a cost of ₹6.

The situation of mango growers is no different. In 2025, Totapuri growers in Chittoor were dealing with rain damage, yet they had a crop and still ended up with an income. The government had announced a minimum support price (MSP) of ₹12 per kg plus a subsidy of ₹4, but it never reached the shipyards. In 2026, prices fell from ₹120 in May to ₹30 in June.

Gardeners cite three problems. The first is water. Rayalaseema is rain fed. Ground water falls, wells fail.

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

The second is marketing. On the main day, 300 farmers rush to Madanapalle or Punganur at the same hour. There are no upfront buyers, no grading and weak Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). The price is dictated by middlemen who provide deposits on the crate.

The third is logistics. When it comes to spoilage, tomatoes have a two-day window and mangoes ten. The region has no cold storage or packing facilities, 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: GN Rao

“If the shipment does not arrive on time or the yard is full, farmers have to sell whatever is offered or simply throw away the produce. The incidents of tomatoes dumped on the Madanapalle-Punganur road in 2025 were not about overproduction, but because there was no place to store and no one to buy,” complains Rajasekhar, 38, a farmer from Gurramkonda.

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

Each cluster will have collection centers, sorting, cold storage and market linkages. The Indian Agricultural College, set up by Reliance at Ramireddypalli, will bring AI tools and issue market alerts.

“If this project is implemented in its true spirit, tomato farmers need not bring in all their produce on the first day. They can sort and store the produce for three to four days and send it to Chennai, Bengaluru or Hyderabad based on demand. For mangoes, this could mean pulping units, packing plants for export and direct link to processors instead of depending on the local mandi of Chitor Mandi district during the three-week gluttony Mandi, Kothur Babhurt. Association producers.

“The multi-million dollar project should compulsorily address the problems of farmers first and also those faced by the food industry. Importantly, we need a separate Central Mango Board on the lines of the Tobacco Board,” said Kattamanchi Govardhan Bobby, president, All India Food Processors Association, South Zone.

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

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

Published – 29 Sep 2026 09:38 IST