July 26: Rs 40 a kilo in late June, Rs 80 in early July and now a new high of Rs 120. The price of tomato is shooting up faster than the Sensex.

The buzz in the markets is that a dip in production across the country has led to a shortfall in supply, coinciding with the season when local produce is not available.

The price of tomato has increased by almost Rs 40 a kilo in the Maniktala market since Metro first highlighted the upswing on July 11.

The produce currently available in Calcutta markets is mostly from Karnataka. Tomato becomes dearer between late June and early or mid-August, when the city becomes dependent on supplies from Karnataka. The markets are flooded with produce from within Bengal for around five months before that.

Several retailers said the price rise this year was abnormal. College teacher Debayan Basu, who lives in Maniktala, bought tomato for Rs 120 a kilo last week. "I do not remember when I last paid so much for this vegetable," he said.

Compared to Maniktala, the price of a kilo of tomato is at present lower in New Market (Rs 80) and Lake Market (Rs 90).

Abhijit Kumar Nandi, head of the department of agricultural economics at Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswa Vidyalaya, linked the abnormal price rise to less than normal production in the last crop year (July to June). "During the 2015-16 crop year, tomato production in India was very good, because of which farmers did not get the price they expected," he said.

After taking a price hit in the 2015-16 crop year, wary farmers apparently scaled down production in the subsequent year, which meant less supply to markets like Bengal. "The total area under tomato cultivation was smaller in 2016-17 because farmers did not want a rerun of 2015-16. They preferred growing other crops instead. They feared that they may again incur losses if supply of tomatoes is higher than demand," Nandi said.

The second factor in the price rise is that produce from Bengal has long disappeared from the markets. Tomato is grown in the state in winter. During that period, the price of the vegetable plummets because of abundant supply.

Besides farmers reducing the area of cultivation, climatic conditions have had a role to play in the quantity of production this year. Tomato being essentially a cold crop, the shortening of winter is having an effect on productivity.