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Press release…
The high air temperatures last week in dried onions and potatoes decreased the storage life of the products and increased the waste rates. So our producers have no time or strength to wait.
Increasing wastage also comes out of the producer’s pocket. Considering that the harvest dates of the new crops of onions and potatoes may come to the fore with the increasing weather temperatures in the coming days, potatoes and onions must be marketed urgently.
Due to the pandemic, there was a contraction in demand for potatoes and dried onions. Therefore, the pandemic hit potatoes and onions the most.
Adding that the yield increased by 4.4 percent in potatoes and 3.6 percent in dry onions compared to last year, our producers faced serious marketing problems.
As a matter of fact, approximately 1 million 700 thousand tonnes of potatoes and 220 thousand tonnes of onions are in storage today. Our farmer sells his crop, which is over 1 lira per kilogram due to the waste, at a price below the cost of 60 kurush per kilogram.
Fluctuations in production bring along price instability…
In the period when potato and onion prices increase, consumers and our producers suffer during the period when prices decrease. Rising the export opportunities of the products will also contribute to the solution of marketing problems.
The realization of a planned and sustainable production is the biggest expectation of our producers.
For this reason, production planning should be made for crops such as onions and potatoes where fluctuations in production are very frequent. Our producers should know where and how much to grow.
Therefore, production should be based on Turkey’s needs. Stability in production, prices and producer incomes must be ensured.
We expect the fertilizer prices, which have recently increased, to decrease depending on the exchange rate.
High fertilizer prices will reduce the fertilizer consumption of our farmers, which will adversely affect production. Therefore, fertilizer prices should be reduced immediately.
Şemsi Bayraktar,
President,
Union of Turkish Agricultural Chambers (TZOB)
