MUMBAI: He had 16,000 kilos of freshly harvested tomatoes when the lockdown began. After four months of nurturing the crop, Ahmednagar farmer Nilesh Talekar couldn’t get a single truck to take his stock to the Pune wholesale market. “The entire lot had to be thrown out. It was worth Rs 1 lakh,” says the broken farmer.Two days ago, he tried to send another 7,000 kg there. “Transport cost was more than the money I made. The price of tomatoes on the wholesale markets has crashed to a third of what it was.” Now, Talekar faces a loss of Rs 4,000.Even as Mumbai queues for tomatoes selling at Rs 40 a kg, here’s the irony: farmers who grew them are getting just Rs 5 per kg. Transport bottlenecks have meant farmers have not been able to get their stocks to the market on time.‘Lockdown has deepened agrarian crisis’With customers declining, the demand from traders has also plummeted, leading to a price crash in wholesale markets.Over the last two years, Talekar’s crop in Paithan taluka was ruined by drought and unseasonal rains. “Now I have a good crop but there is no price,” he says bitterly. Another 60,000 kilos of near-ripe tomatoes lie unplucked on his 3.5-acre farm. Usually an acre would fetch a profit of Rs 1lakh. This year Talekar expects a loss of Rs 2-3 lakh.From Takali village in Akole, the picture is not very different. Vegetable farmer Swapnil Navale has dumped 10 tonnes of cabbage which would have fetched him Rs 50,000. “There was no local market here for many days during the lockdown,” he said. Wholesale prices for cabbages are also just Rs 5 though the retail price in Mumbai ranges between Rs 35 and Rs 40.Farmers say the lockdown has deepened the agrarian crisis. “Farmers are facing a lack of access to markets because of transport problems, there is also lower demand because traders,” says Kisan Sabha leader Ajit Navale.