Mysore/Mysuru: La Tomatina is a festival held in Spain on the last Wednesday of August every year but looks like it is being held in Namma Mysuru five months in advance. No it is not the festival in which participants throw tomatoes at each other in a tomato fight purely for entertainment but it is the lockdown effect.

The farmers and traders at APMC yard in Bandipalya on Nanjangud Road are a harried lot as no one is coming forward to buy their produce in the wholesale market since the lockdown came into effect.

They have thrown more than 5,000 crates of tomatoes (approximately 10,000 kilograms) in the gutter and into the garbage heap at the yard since the past few days as the vegetable does not have a long shelf-life.

Yesterday, MCC Pourakarmikas were seen loading the discarded and rotten tomatoes into the garbage truck to clear the stinking debris. Meanwhile in Spain fire trucks are used to hose down the streets with tomato debris. Hope the lockdown comes to a close on April 14 and the farmers will not see red.