Shocking price jump in Turkish onions makes voters' eyes water
The price of onions, the quintessential Turkish staple, has shot up days before Turkey's parliamentary and presidential elections, sparking outrage that may benefit the opposition and feeding conspiracy theories left and right.
Onions are the staple of most Turkish dishes and if one is poor, together with a loaf of bread, one can constitute a meal. Thus news that the price of onions has skyrocketed to seven liras ($1.5) per kilo serves as handy ammunition for the country’s opposition ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary and presidential elections.
The anti-government leftist daily Cumhuriyet posted footage of disgruntled customers at an open air market who left empty handed because prices “burned” their hands. “I will have to cook without onions and just imagine their aroma,” said one. A vendor fumed, “It's incomprehensible. [The government’s] agriculture policy has failed.”
Turkey’s investment-promotion agency paints a decidedly different picture. “Home to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, Turkey’s agricultural sector today is echoing the prosperity of ancient Mesopotamia,” it says, noting that by 2023 Turkey aims to the among the top five overall producers globally. Agriculture employs about a fifth of the population and Turkey produces approximately 3% of the world’s onions.
The immediate reason for the dizzying rise in onion prices — they have more than doubled since last year — remains unknown. Government officials hinted that producers might be hoarding produce to drive up demand and therefore prices, while others suggested that the spike was yet another plot hatched by hostile foreign powers bent on unseating the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Another possible reason is the rise in the cost of diesel oil used by farmers, aggravated by a weakening Turkish lira. Some farmers have returned to using horses to plow their fields, the government-friendly Haberturk reported.
