Onions at 240/kg leave many with teary eyes

Traders attribute soaring prices to paucity of kitchen essential due to exports

KARACHI:

Chopping onions make many people cry, but these days the soaring prices have left many consumers with teary eyes.

The kitchen essential had jumped to Rs180/kg a month ago and then to Rs200 and finally on Monday it was selling for Rs240/kg.

Buyers at vegetable stalls told The Express Tribune that onion was an essential ingredient of the local cuisines. "It is hard to make a curry without onion," said Jamila Mirza a homemaker living at Defence Garden Apartments.

However, the high prices are making everyone cry, she said. Imran Meo, a vegetable vendor in the same neighbourhood, said the poorest of the poor would eat bread with onion, but nowadays a single medium-sized onion would cost Rs30. Per Imran, there was shortage in the main vegetable market at Superhighway. "Big businesses are earning dollars by selling onion abroad."

A market survey by The Express Tribune revealed that the local market is facing a shortage of onions due to the large scale export of onions from Pakistan.

Instead of imposing a ban on the export of onions on the part of the Ministry of Commerce, by increasing the export price, the price of onion has increased by Rs40 at the retail level. Onion is being sold at Rs240 per kg in the local market.

According to the market sources, in order to make the availability of onions in the local market possible and to supply onions to the Indian people at cheap prices, India has banned the export of onions from India, while despite the economic crisis in Pakistan and the worst inflation in history, exporters are allowed to buy onions. An open permission has been given to earn capital from stockpiling and export.

Read Onion prices make many cry

On the one hand, Pakistan is exporting indigenous onions, while onions are being imported from Turkey to meet the local demand. This way the country is losing foreign exchange.

The benefit of this situation is reaching the big exporters who are creating onion shortage on the one hand by exporting onions in the name of farmers and on the other hand they are making money from export.

The Pakistani Ministry of Commerce has increased the export price of onion from US$750 to US$1200 per ton, prioritizing the financial interest of the exporters over the problems of the people due to inflation. This decision has intensified the hoarding of onions. As a result the supply of onions to the retail market has become extremely limited.

Sources in the vegetable market say that the export is not benefiting the onion farmers as the onion crop was shifted to the hoarders' warehouses several weeks ago. Onion bought from the farmers is now being sold at a bargain price. Onions are scarce in the local vegetable market and retailers are buying sacks of onions at arbitrary prices and selling them in city markets.

By increasing the export price of onion to $1,200 per ton, all the benefits will go to the exporters who have capital and orders to export onions and stored onions will also be able to be purchased by the same exporters who are exporting onions at this price. Small exporters will not benefit in this situation. Onion prices in the vegetable market are increasing on an hourly basis due to competition among exporters to procure onions. Consumers have demanded the government to immediately ban the export of onion and control the price of onion in the local market.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2024.