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29 March 2024

Easy on the sauce: tomatoes costlier than petrol!

Tomatoes from India are sold for Dh40 per carton. (SUPPLIED)

Published
By VM Sathish

Vegetable prices in the UAE have skyrocketed in the last few weeks. Tomatoes are sold for a whopping Dh8 per kilo.

While the price of a carton of tomatoes from Jordan has gone up to Dh43 from just Dh17 a few weeks back, tomatoes from India are sold for Dh40 per carton. To add to customers' woes, most retailers prefer to sell only whole cartons.

Ashraf, a vegetable trader in Al Ain vegetable market, said: "Traders now prefer to sell only whole cartons. This is to stop customers from picking up good ones and leaving the rest behind. It is not profitable to sell tomatoes now.”

Crop faliures due to floods in the Subcontinent and clearance delays at ports because of long holidays in the region have ensured vegetable imports were delayed, leading to  supply shortage in the UAE market.

“Indian vegetable prices have gone up by 15 per cent mainly due to heavy rains in the Subcontinent. There has led to a backlog of as long as five days at Indian ports. Also there was a marine accident, which added to the delay and shortage here," said Sidharth Chomals K, Managing Director, Sun Floritech International, a fruits and vegetables wholesale dealer in Al Awir market.

In fact, after Ramadan, prices of vegetables imported from Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria and  Lebanon have gone increased sharply. And about 60-70 per cent of the total fruits and vegetables in the UAE are imported from these countries.

If recession has been controlling customers' purse strings in the recent past, nature's fury and festivities have made it worse. So much so people are incresingly avoiding certain vegetables.

Nearly half of Egyptians live on around $2 (Dh7.3) per day and increasing vegetable and food prices is putting undue pressure on such families. In Egypt vegetable prices have gone up by nearly 70 per cent from a year ago, according to figures released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics.

Traders are also being cautious as they anticipate new rules to control import of pesticide-free vegetables and fruits. It may be noted curry leaves from India was banned for sometime after laboratory tests found pesticides in them.