Bathery: For the people of Gundlupet, garlic is nothing less than white gold. Once touching a record high of ₹300 per kilo, the price has now crashed to below ₹100. With the rains continuing unabated, the standing crop too is facing severe damage.

Many farmers have been left with no option but to harvest tender garlic from rain-soaked fields. Prices, which had dipped as low as ₹50, were hovering between ₹65 and ₹85 per kilo yesterday. In the district markets too, garlic now fetches only ₹120–₹140 per kilo. Garlic cultivation season here lasts for just three months.

Subbannan, a farmer from Verambady in Gundlupet, says growers are now harvesting their crops en masse to salvage whatever they can. Most of the garlic cultivated in Gundlupet is sent to the vegetable market in Mettupalayam, Tamil Nadu. Usually, two or three farmers team up to load and dispatch the produce to the market.

With harvesting in full swing, women in the villages of Gundlupet are busy sorting the crop into grades and filling them into sacks for storage and sale.