Economic Losses of Tomato Production Due to Climate Change in Latur District of Maharashtra: A Farmer Approach

Tomato is the edible berry of the plant Solanum lycopersicum commonly known as a tomato plant. The species originated in western South America and Central America. Tomatoes are a significant source of umami flavour. The tomato is consumed in diverse ways, raw or cooked, in many dishes, sauces, salads, and drinks. Agricultural production is under threat due to climate change in food insecure regions, especially in Asian countries. Various climate-driven extremes, i.e., drought, heat waves, erratic and intense rainfall patterns, storms, floods, and emerging insect pests have adversely affected the livelihood of the farmers. Losses of horticultural produce are a major problem in the post-harvest chain. The multi-purpose random sampling technique was used for the selection of study area and the sampling units. The concluded that the highest in consistency in mean was observed in female labour, machine charges, plant protection used in tomato by the farmers was mostly constant during study period. In the case of tomato during the study period was Cost ’A’ and the Input Output ratio at cost ’C’ concluding that this cultivation was profitable to the farmers at the prices received by the farmers per quintal. It can be concluded that the total quantity of tomato out of 42122.55 kilograms harvested in the sample farmers, about 2746.99 kilograms were lost, which accounted for about 6.52 per cent due to various reasons. Average physical losses suffered due to such damages by the farmers at farm level.