Tomatina in India

[skthewimp]

Almost every other year, there is a bumper crop of tomato in Kolar district, leading to prices of tomato falling under Rs. 2, leading to heavy losses amongst farmers. It's not uncommon for farmers to throw sackloads of tomatoes on to the highway rather than selling at such throwaway prices.

I hereby suggest that in such times of a glut in the

Comments

[arvindn]

i'm unable to understand how that helps the farmers. i know they did that during the great depression as well.. sacks of wheat dumped into the ocean, i think. i've had people try to explain it to me, but it somehow just doesn't make sense. i need to learn more economics, i guess.

[skthewimp]

i think i'll do a separate post addressing this tomorrow. even i've noticed this in several other markets. burning wheat during the depression is one.

then, when i went for the india-pakistan test match last month i noticed that tickets for one stand hadn't been sold at all - it was empty. and the black marketers made a neat killing on all other stands.

fundamental concept is that demand is such that the revenue lost from not selling that particular stand is significantly less than what you gain from the black markets for other stands.

[anonymous]

This is exactly what happens in Spain. They have a food fight just to get rid of excess tomato stock, and make a lot of money from the 60000 tourists who turn up every year. Even their famous 'running of the bulls' festival is just a glossly packaged version of the 'jallikattu' that happens in TN

There is so much tourist potential in India, we just dont know how to sell it

Guhan

[skthewimp]

agreer