Tomato
The tomato is a warm-season fruit from the Andes turned global vegetable. It needs warmth and sun to set and ripen fruit but sulks in real heat, so field production concentrates in Mediterranean-type summers — California, Italy, and the great processing belt of China.
How it grows
Tomato grows on a woody shrub, its fruit held above the ground.
What it’s worth to grow
Farm-gate value = the price farmers are paid per kilogram (FAOSTAT producer prices, median of 741 positive country-year observations spanning 2018–2024). It tracks how costly and labour-intensive a crop is to grow — almonds and vanilla command a premium; potatoes and cereals are cheap staples.
Where Earth's climate suits tomato
Climatic suitability only — scored for every 0.5° of the planet from this crop's temperature and rainfall tolerances (FAO EcoCrop) on AgroClim 1991–2025 normals (AgERA5 temperature, CHIRPS/ERA5 rainfall). It shows where the rain-fed climate permits the crop, not where it is grown today; irrigation lets many crops thrive in drier country than the map suggests (California, Egypt, the Indus and Nile).
Who grows it — and where the climate merely allows it
The climate where it grows
— mean monthly temperature ▍ monthly rainfall — averaged over the actual growing areas (the suitable cells) inside each country, so it reflects where the crop is really grown, not the national average. AgroClim 1991–2025 normals. The 🌧 badge is the last 3 months’ rainfall as a percentage of the 1991–2020 CHIRPS normal (through 2025-12) — the current drought/deluge signal.
Climate envelope · FAO EcoCrop
Deep bar = optimal range; pale bar = absolute tolerance. Beyond the pale bar the crop fails. Latitude tolerance ±—° · soil pH 5–7.5.
Growing calendar & hazards
A frost-free warm-season annual: transplanted after the last frost and harvested through summer into autumn; year-round in mild-winter and greenhouse regions.
- Frost. Killed outright by frost at both ends of the season.
- Heat. Above ~32°C flowers drop and fruit fails to set.
- Blight & wet. Humid, wet conditions bring early and late blight to the foliage.