Tomato producers who supplied processing companies with tonnes of tomatoes are cash-strapped because they have not yet been paid the subsidies they are owed for last year’s produce.

Several farmers who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity complained they needed the money urgently in order to plough it back in the production of more tomatoes for the upcoming season and to pay for the maintenance of machinery.

Moreover, they said, they had forked out hundreds of euro to pay people to pick tomatoes in the peak of summer last year and were still without the subsidy they were owed by the Agriculture Department as well as their share of EU funds aimed at helping farmers to restructure.

They explained that tomato processers had paid their dues but the 11c6 per kilo owed to them by the government had remained unpaid. Usually, payment was received by March, they said.

One farmer said he was expecting about €7,000 in payment for the 50 tonnes of tomatoes he produced last year.

When contacted, a spokesman for the Resources and Rural Affairs Ministry said the farmers’ figures of how many kilogrammes of tomatoes they produced were being verified by an audit firm and being cross-checked against the area of land they owned. It was envisaged the farmers would be paid by next month.

He said this year an estimated eight to nine tonnes of tomat-oes for processing were produced.

In 2009, the government paid farmers a subsidy of 14c7 per kilo at a time when the pest known as tuta absoluta had wreaked havoc in tomato growing. That year, 6,789 tonnes of tomatoes were sold while an estimated 600 tonnes had to be destroyed because they were affected by the killer insect.