Fruit, vegetable prices drop in Lahore

With the onset of local production of vegetables and fruits, prices have started coming down significantly in Lahore. During the last 27 days, the price of potato had come down by Rs58 per kg, onion by Rs27 per kg and tomato by Rs45 per kg.

However, the prices of ginger imported from Thailand and China had gone up by Rs30- 250 per kg. The price will be reduced when two ships carrying ginger from Thailand reach Karachi. In addition, the reason for the dramatic increase in egg prices is the reduction in the number of laying hens by 20 million (35%) in a year and the smuggling of large numbers of eggs to Afghanistan.

In a meeting of Punjab Price Control Committee, the cabinet members expressed their displeasure over the livestock department officials for not preparing an advance estimate for the decline in egg production in the country. If it had been mentioned earlier, the government could have considered importing eggs. The price committee had directed Afghanistan to take strict measures to curb egg smuggling.

In a meeting chaired by Punjab Minister for Industries Mian Aslam Iqbal, the Agriculture Department special Secretary said that the local crop of onion, tomato and potato had started coming in the market due to which the prices had come down significantly. The price of new potato was Rs105 per kg three weeks ago which now was Rs47.

The price of onion had come down from Rs 68 per kg to Rs41 per kg while the price of tomato had dropped from Rs145 to Rs100 per kg. Ginger was imported from China and Thailand. Due to the delay in import by the private sector in recent days, the price of Thai ginger had gone up from Rs470 per kg to Rs720 per kg while the price of Chinese ginger had gone up from Rs170 per kg to Rs200 per kg.

The meeting was informed that ships carrying 150 containers full of ginger from Thailand had reached Karachi and the prices of ginger will also come down in the next few days as soon as they start unloading. The meeting was informed through statistics that the price of onion in Lahore was lower than the prices of Quetta, Islamabad, Karachi and Peshawar. Regarding increase in egg prices, in the last one and a half years, the production of broiler chickens in Pakistan has decreased by 25 per cent to 28% while the number of layer chickens (laying eggs) had decreased by 35%.

The coronavirus lockdown had hit the poultry industry the hardest. Before the winter season last year, the number of laying hens across Pakistan was more than 70 million, which had now dropped to less than 50 million. The prices of wheat and maize used in poultry feed production had also increased the cost. Sources added that a large number of Pakistani eggs were being smuggled to Afghanistan as the price of eggs in Pakistan was still higher than the prices of Afghanistan and Iran.