About 60,817 quintals of onions would be enteringthe country in the next ten days, which, according to the producers of Chiriquíhighlands, is chaotic and tragic for the agricultural sector since there existsno a limit to the "flood of imports".
What isworrying, according to the producers, is that to that amount other 36 thousandquintals of onion are added that have entered to date and that added to the newreports would be 96,817 quintals of onion, only in the month of July, what isequivalent, approximately, to the consumption that Panamanians have in three months.
It is expected that 14,232 quintals of onions willenter the country from Holland, 23, 776 from the United States and 22,809 fromPeru; However, the Panamanian Authority of Food Safety (Aupsa) records that inthe first seven months of this year 132 thousand 967 pounds have entered thenational territory, and it is in the month of July when larger quantities havebeen imported.
These are the reasons why the producers of theAssociation of the Producing Community of Highlands (ACPTA), after a GeneralAssembly on July 26, decided to set up the pound of onion at a price of $0.65,as a measure of pressure on imports, price which is well below the $0.80established by the Decree on the Control of Prices.
During the first day of national onion sale, theonion producers received a very good public acceptance for the low prices,however, they now have a new concern for the shipment of the crop that will becoming, since it creates fierce competition.
While the national onion is sold at a low price, thepound of imported onions is somewhere around $1.25 per pound, according toJavier Pitty, producer of onion in the Highlands.
Pitty said that importers are profiting from the priceof onions, since they are selling it between $90 and $125 per quintal and hencethe price for the consumer is higher, while the national quintal sells for $65.
Yuri Huerta, General Manager of Aupsa, recentlyreported that in the next few days approximately 2.2 million pounds of onions willbe entering the country from Peru and about 880 thousand pounds from Holland.
Augusto Jiménez, President of the ACPTA, said thatthey have tried to communicate with the new Minister of Agricultural Development(Mida), Eduardo Enrique Carles, but he has not responded his missed phone calls.
Jimenez said that they are urgently requesting ameeting with the authorities to exhaust the dialogue options before takingother measures of pressure as they have previously done.
"We encourage Minister Carles to come out ofhis cooled office and come to the field to see what is happening",highlighted the onion producer.
The ACPTA reported that the producers have takenthis measure in defense of food sovereignty, since on the first week of August therewill be a field inventory of potatoes and onions and expect to have a space inthe market.
The onion producers count on approximately 5,000quintals of onions, to bid at lower prices.
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