© Photo: Maria Novoselova/Vestnik Kavkaza
Kazakh farmers are unable to sell the 160,000 tons of onions that have accumulated in storage, and due to warming, there is a big problem: the country lacks of warehouses with refrigeration equipment.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan suddenly encountered an intractable issue: warehouses are bursting with stocks of onions from last year's harvest. At the moment, the weather is getting warmer, and the onions begin to deteriorate. Soon there will be a new harvest, and there are no storage facilities for it, the ministry reports.
“In fact, the volume of onions produced is three times higher than the current demand. The annual harvest is about 1.1 million tons, while consumption averages 315,000 tons,”
- Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan informed.
Moreover, in the 2023 fall, the demand for onions fell, and farmers were unable to sell them at the market price of 40 tenge per kilogram. Now that many have decided to sell their onions amid the increasing supply, prices have dropped to 15-20 tenge per kilogram, but onions are a rather specific crop, and no one is in a hurry to buy them on an industrial scale, even at a bargain price.
Currently, about 160,000 tons of unsold onions have accumulated in storage facilities, and they are beginning to deteriorate.
