“Tomato King” Ramesh Pangal, a farmer in the north Indian state of Haryana, had a good yield despite a heatwave that began earlier than usual this summer. By May, the tomatoes he had grown on 21 hectares (52 acres) after taking a loan of $22,000 were red, ripe and ready to be harvested.
The wholesale price of tomatoes had been depressed for the past eight months, but Pangal, who has won several awards and earned the grand “Tomato King” epithet for using technology to modernise farming in his region, was hoping the prices would stabilise.
