ECONOMIC CONCEPTS AND
THEORIES
2
Economic Concept and Theories
India tomato shortage causes curry crisis and puts sellers under pressure
At Pimpalgaon Basant, a village located in western India, there is no even a single cloud
in the sky. The last time it rained in this region was days ago, and it rained for only one hour. In
absence of rain, the Pimpalgaon tomato market, which is said to be the biggest in Asia, is almost
empty. The production of tomatoes has decreased rapidly.
Drought in India has hit the harvest of tomatoes, hurting the farmers of tomatoes
production, hiking prices of tomatoes, and forcing the consumers to use the substitutes of
tomatoes in cooking dishes such as curries. Production of tomatoes in India has been dominant
especially in some parts of India such as West India compared to other food crops, but this has
recently changed as a result of drought leading to low production of tomatoes in this areas.
Tomatoes in India are one of the most protective food crops. Due to the high production of
tomatoes, consumers were driven to these products impeccably.
The consumers’ demand function for tomatoes consist of use as a base for cooking
vegetables, curries etc, affordability as a result of cheap prices, good taste when used for cooking
vegetables and easiest way of cooking. Therefore has however changed recently as a result of
drought which has led to drastically increase in prices of tomatoes. Consumers have now been
forced to use the substitutes of tomatoes for cooking purposes such as curries etc. Many hotels
and restaurant has dropped tomatoes -based dishes from their menus and the sales of processed
tomatoes sauces have also gone up by 40%.
