A tomato collection center was run by Shri Jhabu Gorai S/O Keshori Goari in Kumarda village of Patamda block in East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand in 2010 and 2011. Sri Jhabu Gorai is a marginal farmer engaged in cultivating paddy and vegetables using traditional method before becoming a part of the TVCD project. He is associated with the Farmer’s Club of Kumarda village. He has experience of the tomato business as he has worked as a laborer under a local businessman, gradually he become a partner of the business. On the other hand he has been associated with organization TSRD (Tagore Society for Rural Development) since last 5 years and TVCD project as well. He had cultivated tomato in 66 decimal of land in 2011 with the improved tomato PoP initiated by TSRD under TVCD project. In this project the concept of tomato collection center was shared with him in the training program and he became interested to run the Collection center as per the guidelines of TSRD. Then TSRD team imparted the training on agri- entrepreneurship including tomato trading.
The exposure visits to different big vegetable markets like Panskura, Burdwan, Durgapur, Bolpur etc in West Bengal were organized with local youth and existing small traders like Jhabu Gorai. During the exposure visits they were linked with big traders, Mandi Holders, wholesalers of many markets. TSRD team facilitated him to set the tomato business in terms of preparation of business plan etc. to build the collection center. TSRD provided him the low cost tent for collection centre, digital weighing balance, 1000 pieces used egg cartoon etc. In the year 2011 he covered total 120 marginal and small farmers of Kumarda, Sanjra, Kashmar and Makula villages. Those farmers have no access of marking of tomato in distance markets. Farmers send their tomato to distance markets through this collection center. This collection center was run as the private enterprise of Jhabu but the daily market rate was disseminated through Farmers Club members and Jhabu Gorai purchased tomato at per the daily market rate of the particular day. As per the report of the collection center of 2011, a total 205 MT of tomato were sold in Burdwan, Panskura, Jamshedpur, Rampur, Beldanga through the collection centers. The average rate realized by him was Rs. 8.27 per kg from the markets. He paid to farmers of Rs. 6.33 per kg. The farmers got high rate of Rs 0 .55 per kg than the local market. Jhabu Gorai earned a profit of Rs. 0.25 per kg. During 3 months Jhabu Gorai earned Rs 51250.00. And he had an additional benefit of Rs.939.00 per famer from the collection centers. Hence Jhabu Gorai benefitted from the TSRD –VB Net Initiative of the TVCD project.