If you missed escabeche on New Year's Day, you can get it this weekend. The news tonight is that onions are available and affordable locally, but that's just right now. And the story behind it? Well, that's another story. A shipment arrived on Saturday and made its way into the market on Tuesday of this week. That has somewhat alleviated the scarcity but that's just for the short term. Vendors predict that this will only last for a few more days after which we'll revert to the same short supply and high prices. Today we stopped by the Queen's Square Market and spoke with those who used to import onions before the exclusive license was given to the Marketing Board. Julian Chel and Salvador Para say that if the Marketing Board restrictions were relaxed to allow others to import onions, not only would the prized vegetables be plentiful, they would be cheaper.
Julian Chel,
"They can do what they want. If they want to sell it for three dollars a pound that is their business."
Alfonso Noble,
So the markup is too big?
Julian Chel,
"Well they do what they want. The thing is that last two weeks we had onions brought in from Mexico at $2.60 or I read in the newspaper $1.95 a pound. When it came out here, it was like $2. We had to sell it for two or three dollars a pound. The Marketing Board is controlling the onions. They can do what they want. The Minister of Agriculture should, if the onions are expensive, they are saying that they want to help the people of Belize or the consumers they should give back the permit to the importers and let the importers bring in the onions and definitely the onions will become cheaper to Belize."
Vendor,
"Last week the importers checked the prices landing here in Belize. It is $1.10 a pound. That is more cheaper than the onions which the Marketing Board imports. I don't know why the price is high right now. I feel that if they open the license to other importers and Marketing Board, everybody, it will be a competition. So I think the prices would be more cheaper than the price it is right now. When somebody monopolizes, they can put the price that they want."
We spoke with Chief Agricultural Officer Eugene Waight today who told us that Marketing Board whole sales the onions at $1.20 and any additional price increase is attributed to middlemen and other retailers. Right now onions are retailing in the city for about $2 a pound - a sharp decrease from the $5 it had reached in some areas just before New Year's. The import woes may continue later into the year when local producers halve their harvest.
