Main Article Content
Abstract
Agriculture has an important role to play in the economic development of an agrarian economy like India. It is crucial to the farmers to make informed decisions about what to grow, when to harvest. The objectives of the present study are: to examine the reason for cultivating tomato; to analyse the cost of production in tomato cultivation; and to know the relationship between input and output of tomato cultivation. The study focuses the farmers’ attitude and intention to cultivate tomato for sustainable development. The study was conducted in Coimbatore district with the sample size of 342 respondents during the year 2014. The area under tomato cultivation has more in Coimbatore district. The study suggests that the growers of tomato may be encouraged to adopt some measures for value addition, including grading and standardization of the produces according to size, shape and degree of ripeness/maturity. Such a step many help the growers to get different rates for different grades instead of selling of one common lot, which led to lower returns to growers. The inadequacy of processing units in the area under study is considered as one of the major constraints in marketing of tomato. There is urgent necessity of establishing processing units in the areas producing surplus tomatoes. The processed tomato products can be supplied in local markets.