Stored and Imported Onions Worseىn the Suffering of Syrians, Amid Monopolization and Decision-Making Floundering

Habib Shihadha

72-year-old Abdulfattah, a retired public employee, didn’t expect that he’d be living until the only option left for him to buy onions is to wait in line in front of the Syrian Trading Establishment so that he’d be able to buy one or two kilograms of onions that have become rare and expensive in Damascus

“The nearest Syrian Trading hall is in Bab Sraijeh, and it’s not even for selling vegetables,” the man explains to Rozana. Abdulfattah postponed the idea of getting what he called “subsidized onions'', as the hall is only limited to food supplies.

Over the past two months, there’s been an onion crisis in the Syrian market. The price gradually increased from 2000 to 4000 Syrian Pounds, and then shot up to 8000. At that point, onions disappeared from the market, and the price started to increase on a daily basis until the price of one kilogram of onions reached 18,000 Syrian Pounds.

Even though the onion season has been globally affected by the floods in India and Pakistan, the CEO of Iqtisadi Younes al-Karim believes that such an effect is minor when compared to the climate change that resulted in drought; water scarcity; increased demand for onions from its sources; and prices being floated by the regime’s government, weakening the process of growing onions and making it useless compared to other trading activities.

Internal Trade Minister Amr Salem ascribed the onion crisis to the Ministry of Agriculture’s wrong expectations: onion production was estimated to be 63 thousand tons, while the Syrian market’s need was only 59 thousand tons. And therefore, there were extra 3900 tons of onion. In order for farmers not to lose, the Economic Committee allowed exporting. The solution to the crisis was to import onions from Egypt to cover the market’s need until the current season begins, according to what Salem told a local website.

This onion crisis is foreign to Syrians, who have been facing all kinds of food crises during the war. Most Syrians denounced facing such a crisis in an agricultural country like theirs. Onions are no longer the cheapest agricultural product, according to what some Damscuss residents told Rozana.

As onion purchasing is related to the availability of other goods, there has been a decline in the demand for onion; and decisions to heavily export onions have been made. According to what al-Karim told Rozana, the regime exported onions and other goods to get foreign currency (USD) and open the door for trading captagon and drugs with other goods.

Syrians Are Facing an Onion Crisis

The Onion Crisis in Syria

Click here

May 2022

Exporting Syrian Onions

In May 2022, the regime approved the recommendation of the Economic Committee to export onions and garlic, as long as the exported amounts don’t exceed 3600 tons of onions and 5600 tons of garlic. The decision was made on the basis that there was more onions in supply than what the market needed during that period.

February 2023

Governmental Decision to Import Onion

On February 22, the regime announced approving the same committee’s recommendation to import 2000 tons of onions for the Syrian Trading Establishment. The approval came on condition that the exported amounts should arrive before the end of the same month, so that they’d be able to introduce and sell them to citizens in their retail halls.

March 2023

Onion on Smart Cards

On March 4, after the amount of onions imported from Egypt was received, the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection added onion to the items that can be purchased through the Smart Card. For one card, each citizen was allowed to buy one kilogram of onions every week. And then, on the grounds that there’s a high demand for onion, the allowed amount was raised to 2 kilograms every week.

“Spoiled and Rotten” Onions

Three sources in Damascus and Rif Dimashq confirmed to Rozana that a large amount of the onion available at the halls of the Syrian Trading Establishment is of bad quality and isn’t even imported as the Internal Trade Minister Amr Salem claimed. According to the sources, the available onion was stored by a pro-regime trader that’s behind the onion crisis: the trader wanted a way to sell the stored onion in accordance with the ministries of trading and agriculture.

Anonymous sources, who work in Syrian Trading halls around Damascus, mentioned that while a portion of onions is stored, the largest portion is seized in warehouses in Homs’s Talbiseh; al-Rastan; and al-Zahraa. According to the sources, the Syrian Trading Establishment made up the whole onion crisis and then suggested the solution of selling one kilogram for 6000 Syrian Pounds.

Reasons Behind the Crisis

Even though the regime imported onions from Egypt, one of the world’s largest exporters of onion, al-Karim ascribed the crisis to political and economic reasons. “The high fuel prices made the process of growing onions expensive, when compared to the price of the final product. That’s why it’s discouraging to grow onions,” al-Karim told Rozana.

Al-Karim adds that the cost and unavailability of compost, especially after Iran and Russia took over the Syrian fertilizer industry and phosphate mines, affected the process of growing onions. However, importation is restricted by the laws of the central bank and the availability of foreign currency.

According to al-Karim, acreage allocated for cultivating onions in Rif Hama; Rif Dimashq; and Homs has been decreased after being transformed into off-limits military zones. “Urban expansion in onion cultivation areas, unavailability of workforce, and the pointless usage of machinery in growing onions have also decreased the cultivated acreage,” he added.

As for the political reasons behind the crisis, al-Karim explains, they are connected to economic ones like: the water crisis, Turkey cutting off the flow of Tigris and Euphrates at the source and affecting onion growing in northeastern Syria, the tension between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the regime, the deteriorated water situation in Syria, and the climate change that led to low water levels.

Over the past few years, many farmers have been depending on onion farming that’s famous in several Syrian cities like Hama; Rif Dimashq; Homs; and Upper Mesopotamia. However, lack of governmental support; fuel shortage; and poor marketing have led many of them to give up.

Onion farmers are concerned that last year’s scenario might happen again this year; and that the price of one kilogram of onions might drop (the price didn’t exceed 1500 Syrian pounds last season). This forced Hameed, a farmer from al-Ghab Plain, to harvest this season’s onions before ripening; and to sell them as spring onions.

“I’d rather sell it now than have it ruined in a few months,” he told Rozana. “The onion crisis in Syria is caused by exportation, and the low price paid to farmers for one kilogram of onions. The price is much higher in the market”.

Al-Karim believes that the current global price inflation has made it pointless to do this kind of work, given the high cost of cultivation and the low price of selling. That’s why it’s discouraging to grow onions, al-Karim adds, especially that the agricultural market hasn’t yet recovered from COVID-19 and the change in fuel prices.

Under such deteriorating living conditions, where people can’t “eat onion” as Abdulfattah expressed, most Syrians wait in line every week to get 2 kilograms of bad-quality onions.