Know your onions: How China stepped in to control Asia's veggie crisis

Published on 04-Dec-2019

Khushboo Razdan

People scuffle as they purchase subsidized onions in Dhaka, Bangladesh, November 17, 2019. /VCG Photo

Hollywood-style robberies, smuggling and fist fights – not for gold or cash but onions! The Asian diet staple has become a prized possession in countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with the retail price ranging between two and six U.S. dollars per kilogram.

Last week, a truck carrying onions worth 20 lakh Indian rupees (around 27,700 U.S. dollars) disappeared before reaching its destination in India's Madhya Pradesh state. Similar cases of onion "heists" have been reported in other parts of the country.

India, the world's biggest onion exporter, is not letting even a single onion out; it imposed a ban on exports in September after the latest harvest was destroyed due to unseasonal rains. On Thursday, Indian customs officials seized onions worth five crore Indian rupees (around 694,637 U.S. dollars) which were allegedly being smuggled to Nepal, one of the major importers of Indian onions.

Li Guoxiang, a research fellow at the Rural Development Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told CGTN Digital that China with its huge onion production can help ease the veggie crisis.

"China has a very large onion reserve. There are many suitable places for growing onions on the vast Chinese territory. For a long time, China was a major exporter of onions all over the world," Li said, adding "China has the capacity to meet both domestic and international demand."

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