The stakes in tomato cultivation

CRATES for one hectare of tomatoes, which is grown as an off-season crop in Himachal Pradesh, require wood from 10 ha of chir pine forest, says R V Singh, former director general of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education.

Tomatoes -- as well as peas and beans -- are heavy users of stakes made from lopped branches. Staking is necessary in hilly rain-fed areas to prevent rotting of fruit. Stakes last about three years, though many break during re-use. Two or three stakes are used for each plant, depending on the thickness of the stake.

A ha of tomatoes needs 6-7 tonnes of stakes as support. With annual branchwood production in 20-year-old chir pine plantations estimated at 1-2 tonnes per ha, 3-4 ha of chir pine plantations have to be lopped every third year to provide stakes for a ha of tomatoes.

Heavy lopping affects tree growth and slows the rate of soil-conserving water retention. Singh believes in the long run, the losses of timber, resin and soil will negate the gains from cultivation of off-season vegetables.

Endangered trees
In the tomato-growing areas of Pune district and Ahmednagar district, karvi trees take the brunt of the demand for stakes. The karvi trees grow on slopes and helps topsoil from slipping away. They flower once every seven years and Milind Kothawade of the World Wide Fund for Nature warns they are being rapidly depleted. In Ambegaon, where tomato cultivation covers 10,000 ha, the karvi sticks are cut by Mahadeokoli tribals from the Bhimashankar region.

Baba Pansare, an activist working for the welfare of the landless Thakkar adivasis who provide most of the labour on the farms, says, "The government should ban the cutting of karvi. The forest department is just not bothered about it."

Fertiliser use, too, has its fallouts. The hybrid tomatoes introduced for commercial production in 1973 are sprayed with fertiliser from the seedling stage itself. After transplantation, they are sprayed thrice every fortnight. Sunil Pingale says he gave up tomato cultivation 10 years ago "after seeing the effects of fertiliser not only on plants and soil, but also on humans, who have developed skin diseases."

Pingale says experts reported fertiliser applications were to blame for reducing yields to half their potential. He has switched to other crops, using only compost manure and proselytises fellow farmers to the anti-chemical cause, but with little success. "When we warn them against the harmful effects of chemicals, they think we are fools," he says.